Ten things I did to prioritise my writing in 2023

Plus courses, writing events and mentoring details

Photo by Ch_pski on Unsplash

We are almost at the end of 2023. The cheese is almost eaten. Man, that was a LOT of cheese. You are, perhaps, in a reflective mood, watching 2024 approaching and wondering what sort of resolutions and writing goals to set yourself in the new year.

This year was a year of change for me. At the beginning of 2023, having landed a book deal with The Borough Press for my first narrative non fiction book, The Ghost Lake, I was deep into writing and wanting to make the absolute most of an opportunity that could, hopefully, change my career direction and give me a foot in the door to further opportunities. I reflected on what I was doing as a writer, where I was prioritising my time and energy and whether that would, ultimately, help me to meet the goals I’d set myself. The big goal, as ever, is to have a successful writing career. My definition of ‘successful’ is to make enough money from the work that I love in order to continue to do the work that I love. Here are ten things that helped me to prioritise this life goal, in no particular order:

1. I changed my mindset around work. I’d spent eight or nine years building a career as a creative writing workshop facilitator and mentor, alongside building my writing career. This meant that I was working in the arts, something I’d always dreamt of, but I was spending more time teaching and facilitating than writing, and around 2022/23 my career had become a little stuck. Being self employed is a strain on the nerves. There is no magic money going into your bank account at the end of the month so you are always on the hustle finding ways to make a living. This meant that my priority was always around paying the bills and the mortgage. This led to me feeling like I had to take every opportunity to make money as a facilitator, and left very little time to write. I changed my mindset by defining my facilitator work as something I needed to do in order to fund at least one full day of writing per week. I was never going to further my career if I didn’t prioritise my work. Really, this was a psychological change, the day still needed paying for and I still needed to take on facilitator work in order to do that and still pay my bills. By making work about ‘funding my writing’ it gave me permission to put my prices up on some of my mentoring and facilitating work in order to free the writing day up. This was a game changer and now this is my default position when thinking about how I manage my work - will it fund writing time or will it take me away from writing time? If the pay is too low for the amount of work involved, then it won’t fund writing time.

2. I left facebook. I wrote about this in another post

   One of the things that had happened with facebook was that I was running my courses through it and using it as a personal space and I had built up a reputation on there as a facilitator. I am struggling to explain what the problem was with that. I was a victim of my own success, in a way, because the courses were very popular, but I had become stuck at a certain price range and a certain method of running them, and I needed to change direction. No matter what I did, I did not manage to do that on Facebook. There were other factors involved in my leaving, I was no longer really enjoying it. Leaving has had its downfalls; I miss some of the friends I made on there, but mostly it has been a genuine sense of freedom to walk away and draw a line in the sand, to say ‘this is where I change direction’. I love a new start.

3. I began seeing social media as part of my job. This is awful really, I wish it wasn’t so, but actually anyone who is self employed or a freelancer will know that no one is coming to save you, or do anything for you, you have to do it yourself. You have to be IT, HR, marketing and CEO of your own company. Because that’s what you are as a creative, a business. I’d been trying to fit my socials around my work, but realised if I wanted to promote my work more effectively and, again, make full use of the opportunity that my book deal had given me, I needed to take this seriously and devote time to it. It is another psychological step. It means that my writing and my work is important enough to take the time to promote. I find I have to find ways of giving myself permission to value myself and my work, a lot.

4. I did more of the work I loved. At some point I realised I was dreading some aspects of my facilitating and feeling crushed by imposter syndrome. When I looked at what I actually genuinely looked forward to, it was more one on one work, and more small group zoom work than some of the courses I’d run. I decided to prioritise short mentoring spots, facilitating writing spaces, running a book club etc and this made a huge difference to my stress levels. It might just be that it was a changed and a change is good for the soul, after spending so long working in a particular way, but this year has been just joyful as far as work goes, every thing I’ve done has been enjoyable and I have loved working with my writers. Thank you so much for your support!

5. I took a pay cut. This was an enormous risk. I had to cut back the facilitating and increase the writing and trust that my writing was good enough to be paid for, and it worked out. This was a kind of last transition point of a journey I had been on for eight or nine years, in which I needed to build both my writing career and facilitator career at the same time. This was the year I jumped from one to the other, changed the ratio to more writing and less facilitating and trusted that I could make it as a writer. I had done enough to build my writing career - not just having books published, but also freelancing, writing articles for well established magazines and websites - that I was known as a writer and I am now regularly asked to facilitate, judge competitions, write for magazines etc, as well as pitching for work. I do not regret this decision, but I had nightmares about it for weeks and weeks and was paralysed by my own fear of failure.

6. Substack! As part of my move away from Facebook I began exploring how I could continue my facilitator work in a different way, working more around what I am naturally good at, and naturally enjoy. When I found substack it felt like coming home. This was a good move for me because I took some of my audience with me, writers I’d worked with before came with me to substack and whilst I don’t have the highest subscriber count compared to some people, it does make a big difference each month and is regular money. Thank you so much to the people who feel I can offer them something they are willing to pay for. It means the absolute world to me.

7. I made a conscious decision to make time to think. I needed more time to think, walk, experience life in order for my work to grow. I didn’t set rules or time allocations around these activities, I just made sure they were there. This is the upside of being self employed. Often I will step away from my desk and go and walk on the beach or round the lanes and it gives me a chance to let thoughts settle and solve writing problems. I am enjoying my slower life enormously. I felt guilty initially, every time I left my desk. But I don’t anymore. I see this as part of my creative practice.

8. I made time for reading. Actually, this is something I’ll be doing more of next year. I’ve not read as much this year as last year. Reading is so important to me, and it is so important to read widely in order to experience the world. It is good for a writer to read. My intention is to value the time I spend reading more, set aside some time specifically for reading.

9. I took some CPD (continued Professional Development) courses. Some with private facilitators, some with the Society of Authors (they are brilliant). See point 3 - I needed to know more about setting up a website (a work in progress), managing my tax return, ACE funding, social media - all the things I feel that I was not very good at. It’s boosted my confidence and, again, given me permission to value my work as a professional.

10. Organised my work space. If you saw it now, post christmas clutter, you wouldn’t think so. But I worked on creating a space in which everything I needed was to hand - research, books, pens, planner… which made it easier to do my work. When I have a tidy up in the new year I’ll show you, but not before then!

Photo by Viktor Forgacs on Unsplash

Most of the changes I undertook were psychological. That’s because I struggle to value myself and my work and have a default position of feeling I don’t belong/am not good enough etc. This is so common in writers, so I hope there’s something in my list that might help you move forward.

I wish you a fantastic start to 2024. If you are wanting to forward your own writing career, I have a range of stuff that might help:

What to Look for in Winter begins 3rd January. There is still time to book!

This is an online course, details can be found here:

The Dawn Chorus returns on the 8th January.

This is a zoom based early morning writing group with optional prompts. It’s a peaceful way to start your day and prioritise your writing. If you’d like to join me, details can be found here:

Weekend Write Along

This is a new thing!

It’s a day long zoom based event in which we begin with a talk from an industry specialist, a Q&A session and then optional prompts throughout the day (use the space to work on your own projects if you wish!) it’s a place of community and accountability and gives writers a chance to ask questions of people in the industry.

I have three weekend write alongs set up:

January - Polly Atkin, poet and author, is the guest speaker

February - Jamie McGarry, founder and editor at Valley Press, is the guest speaker.

March - Caro Clarke, Agent at Portobello Books, is the guest speaker.

Mentoring

I’m not taking long term mentees on currently, but am still offering writer check ins, so do get in touch. Details here:

Thank you so much for reading, I shall see you in 2024.

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