How To Create Your Own Targeted Writing Programme

You’re only a writer if you write every day.

But what do you write? And how?

Those are the million-dollar questions.

If you truly want to be a writer, you’ll write no matter what.

It’s not too late.

But you also want to build your writing portfolio, amass your literary legacy, sharpen your wordsmith and storytelling skills, and get positive feedback from your writing. 

In that case, rather than just sit down at the computer each day and let whatever happens happen, you’ll need to construct your own targeted writing programme.

All your favourite authors, and the greatest writers in history, created their own personal writing plans. 

They clarified their writing goals, got real serious, and sketched out a self-improvement programme for their writing. 

And while the writers of history have been striving towards their goals, bringing up their lagging parts, and doubling down on their strengths, other craftsmen in different industries were busy doing the same with their art.

Tennis players troubleshooting their backhand, chefs perfecting their eggplant confit, actors developing their physicality.

So let’s get serious.

How To Create Your Own Targeted Writing Programme

I’m going to let you in on my 4-block writing improvement programme.

But first things first, get yourself a targeted reading program aligned with your writing goals:

• How To Construct Your Own Personal Targeted Reading Plan

Reading is a huge piece of the writing puzzle.

If you want to be a thriller writer, you need to read A LOT of thrillers.

Otherwise you’ll end up writing something cliché, thinking it’s good, and scratching your head as to why no one likes it.

James Patterson says in his MasterClass that, when he was writing his first novel, he read 12 books per week.

Lee Child reads 300 books per year. I thought that was impressive. But Patterson, who writes and co-authors 30-40 books per year, has him beat at reading 600+ books a year.

So, number one = fix your reading habit.

Next:

Figure out what kind of writer you want to be.

This is bigger than just the kinds of books you want to write.

This is about visualising what kind of lifestyle you want to live.

• Where do you see yourself waking up in a few years?
• What do you see yourself doing throughout the day?
• Who do you do it with?

If everything went perfectly, and you got exactly what you wanted, what would that look like?

No two writers are exactly the same.

• Hunter S. Thompson wrote gonzo journalism.
• Stephen King writes 1-3 nice-sized novels and a smattering of short stories each year.
• Ray Bradbury talked about writing a poem a day, a short story a week, and a novel a month
• Jeff Lemire, dubbed the hardest working man in comics, produces up to 10 comic books a year.
• Haruki Murakami writes a novel every few years, plus short stories, alongside his marathon training.
• John Green writes one book every few years, whilst hosting a popular YouTube channel and podcast.
• Tim Ferriss has written 4 hefty non-fiction books, whilst heavily investing in his YouTube and lifestyle projects

Me personally?

I would like a small-ish readership, and would like to fly under the radar somewhat.

I’d like to wake up in a villa overlooking the Tuscan hills and write from the cool of early morning until afternoon, from then I spend the day drinking espresso and visiting Renaissance art galleries.

Or maybe I wake up and jog through the mystic pine woods of mountainous Wales before creating art for the rest of the day. Maybe I hop on a plane to Tokyo, maybe I don’t. But I’d like to have that option.

I would regularly like to annually produce:

• 1 x fiction book
• 1 x non-fiction book
• ~3-5 short stories 

You could be pretty prolific if you committed to that over the long-term.

Over 10 years, that’s 20 books, allowing for a variety of genres and exploration, and 30-50 short stories/3 decent-sized short story anthologies.

This allows me scope to throw additional projects on top, projects that I foresee as taking more patience and a network base. Projects like:

• Producing and scripting theatrical performances
• Producing a literature educational brand with lectures, podcasts, and videos

Get poetic, then make it practical: long-term —> short term

Once you’ve figured out your long-term writing goals, break it down and figure out what you’d need to achieve within yearly, monthly, weekly, then daily units.

Again, using myself as an example, if I would like to have a theatrical production or a TV show within 10 years, I’d need to start learning how to write scripts now.

If I want to produce two books per year, there’s a certain word quota that needs to be adhered to.

“I want to have a successful musical stage production” becomes —> “I need a rough first draft of a script by the end of the year” becomes —> study plays, learn the craft, write a scene a day.

“I want to write 2 books per year” becomes —> “I must print out and edit the manuscript of my fantasy novel, and must also write daily to a quota of 1,000-2,000 words for my book on Aristotle.”

Then strengthen your motivations.

I used a bunch of questions from Dr. Peterson’s Self-Authoring Suite to really refine what I want and why.

Ask yourself:

• Do you really believing pursuing these goals is important?
• Would you feel ashamed, sad, or guilty if you didn’t pursue them?
• Do you personally want to achieve this goal, or are you trying to please someone else?
• Is the pursuit of the goal pleasurable/satisfying/stimulating?
• Is this goal part of a deeply felt personal dream?

Write without restraint.

Be honest.

You might then tie the goal into wider social benefits.

• How would pursuing the goal change other parts of your life?
• How would perusing the goal change the way you see yourself?
• How would it affect the way others see you?

Once you’ve done that, think about ways you can make attaining your goals more practical. You might need to spend more time planning. You might need to discuss your goals and dreams with your partner.

My personal detailed strategies for attaining my writing goals include:

Next, you’ll want to be able to monitor your progress towards your goals.

So start setting deadlines.

How else will you know if you’re moving towards your goals or not?

When I wrote a short story and submitted it to Harper’s Magazine, that was a concrete step, measurable and specific, towards my short story writing goal. I just need to do that a few more times this year, and I’ll have evidence that I’ve moved towards that goal.

So ask yourself (again, taking questions from Dr. Peterson):

• When would you like to achieve each of your specific goals? Set a deadline – even if you must revise it later.
• What would you accept as evidence that you’re moving towards your goals?
• How often will you monitor your behaviour?
• How will things need to change, measurably, in your life for you to feel satisfied with your progress?
• How can you make sure you aren’t pushing yourself too hard?

Again, I’ll give a peak at my own working process on the off chance that makes it easier for you to think about your own personal goals.

Evidence I’ll accept as moving towards one of my goals is:

• 10 short stories written, with at least 2 submitted somewhere, by December 25th 2020

How nice would that Christmas present be?

I often use Christmas or my birthday (17th March) as milestones to strive towards with my writing, business, fitness, and personal goals. It makes the days all the more special. Something I’ve done ever since receiving my Oxford acceptance letter on Christmas Eve.

I monitor my behaviour with a morning and nightly recap.

And I ensure I’m not pushing myself too far by regularly refilling the creative well (e.g. scheduled museum trips) and giving myself permission to take on day off per week.

Here are my writing goals that take me to the end of the year:

1. Print out fantasy manuscript and edit.
2. Write 10 short stories and submit them (different genres)
3. Writing a first draft TV script
4. Write book of mythology
5. Write Aristotle book

That’s not it though.

I also personally recommend you make time for deliberate practice.

For me, deliberate practice looks like:

• 5 pages of copywork per week (copywork explained)
• 30 minutes minimum immersed in craft per week with books, lectures, videos

I also isolate the seven critical areas of fiction writing and spend time, usually in monthly units, focusing on them in my reading and writing:

• plot
• theme
• voice
• characters
• dialogue
• scenes
• structure

One month, I’ll be on the lookout for great dialogue. I’ll grab craft books and do exercises and really hone in on just this one aspect.

I also have a 4-block structure adapted from Tom Morello’s guitar practice structure (more on that here).

4-Block Programme for Writers

Feel free to structure your own writing programme like this.

• Block 1 = Work-in-progress
• Block 2 = Technique 
• Block 3 = Theory
• Block 4 = Pure play/creativity/experimentation

This philosophy basically means you start off your writing day, when you’re fresh, with whatever you’re currently crafting.

For me, this means some days/weeks, I’ll be working on a short story. But as I’m only aiming for a handful of short stories per year, and you can often write a short story in a day, I’ll be focusing elsewhere on other days. Maybe it means clocking 1,000-2,000 words of my novel. Maybe it means adding a scene to my screenplay.

Once you’ve finished your work-in-progress block, take a little break, then move onto technique. Artists play with perspective and shading, guitarists do fretwork and scales, and us writers niche down and focus on the nuts and bolts of language and storytelling.

For the technique portion, I’ll take a writing exercise from books like Writing Tools or Save The Cat! or The Fire in the Fiction

After technique comes theory, which involves targeted reading and craft books.

Then, for desert, comes the pure play part where you aren’t writing for anything or anybody. You’re just having a damn good time and letting loose.

Depending on your own personal time commitments, a 4-block could look like this:

• 1-2 hours = writing the current short story, writing a page of script, writing a chapter of latest novel
• 1-2 hours hour = completing the exercises in Writing Tools or Donald Maas’ books + critical areas of fiction (e.g. dialogue, scenes, opening lines, cliffhangers)
• 30 minutes-1 hour = theory: combined with above, learning from books on craft and targeted reading
• 30-minutes-1 hour = just write whatever the hell you like, for no particular reason, and have a blast

And that, my fellow writer friends, is how to create your own targeted writing programme.

I’ve let you know mine, so if you found this article helpful, let me know your writing programme.