Author: Angela Rydell

It’s been a few weeks since hundreds of thousands of writing resolutions were launched into the universe. Now it’s the end of January (already!) and if you, like me, made a New Year’s resolution to give your writing a boost, time is testing our resolve.

My resolution is on a yellow Post-it Note atop my computer screen, and I’m happy to report it hasn’t fallen yet. 😉

I took a cue from Maggie Smith, who shared her goal with us at the Inlet last month: “My goal is always that I want to write better this year than I did last year… I would like to be Maggie Smith writing better in 2022 than she did in 2021.”

(Maggie Smith’s debut novel, Truth and Other Lies, is coming out soon—March of 2022. You can pre-order now for a spring break page-turner. Find out what others are saying about her book on Goodreads)

Thanks to Maggie, “Be Angela Rydell writing better in 2022 than in 2021” has been a helpful guide so far.  I’m building new support systems (like connecting with a writing buddy weekly, and giving myself targeted writing challenges, including flash structure exercises that make my brain twist a bit). And when what I try leads me astray, my resolution’s there, twinkling over my desk, reminding me to stay true to the direction I hope to go. My little north star.

Even if your resolution’s already out the window, you’re not in a bad place. An “out the window” failure can motivate you to reach out that window and for the moon.

The writing goal that fails but doesn’t stop you from striving is among the most productive of all.

If you haven’t been able to hit your goal as you’d hoped, here’s a suggestion. Think like a tennis player. When a player flubs a serve, she doesn’t think, I’ve gotta find a better brand of ball. She rethinks her stance.

In other words, worry less about fixing the resolution, and focus on the approach you need to take in order to get your writing going in the right direction.

In this trimester’s Inlet Craft Intensive: Carrying Your Craft—How to Sustain Your Writing Practice for the Long Haul, I recommend working to balance three elements of writing practice—elements you can control in order to make following through with goals more manageable, possible, and even pleasurable:

• How you think about your writing practice: Mindset. Navigating doubt, hope, expectations, accountability, habit building and the creative process.
• How you care for your craft: Maintenance. From empowered self-editing to “reading like to writer,” talking with writer friends, or simply listening carefully to moments of stuckness as you write, and asking why they’re there in the first place.
• How you approach getting your work into the hands of readers: Macro marketing. This includes envisioning your ideal reader as you revise, and creative angles in to reader connection and author platform.

We meet one Thursday night a month, Feb 17, March 17, and April 14. All genres are welcome. I hope you’ll join us to help make your writing practice deeper, smarter, and more rewarding. To find out more, go to the Inlet Craft Intensive page.

So whatever goal you hope to hit (write eight pages a week, pen a poem a month, be a better writer this year than last, publish in a lit mag) first check your positioning—mindset, craft maintenance, marketing—then train your eye on the bright ball of stardust and hope and determination you hold before you, and try once more to launch it towards the heavens.