7 New Year's Resolutions That Can Improve Your Writing
If you are still struggling to bring about some positive change in 2015, here are 7 New Year’s resolutions that will not only lead to a healthy and balanced lifestyle, but can have a hugely positive impact on your writing as well.
1. Get Up 1 Hour Earlier
Imagine what you can do with an extra hour each day. And if that hour were peaceful, quite, distraction free and possibly even inspiring. If you currently aim to write 5 pages a day, how many could you write with an extra hour? Try waking up one hour earlier, three days a week, and see your productivity increase by 156 hours a year. That’s nearly one extra full month of work a year based on a 40 hour work week.
2. Exercise Harder
Getting the blood moving is important for everyone, but especially for writers who spend vast amounts of time sitting stationary in front of a computer screen. Regular aerobic and anaerobic exercise are proven to boost blood flow. And blood flow keeps us more productive and healthy not only in body, but in mind as well.
3. Meditate Regularly
Meditating and visualization exercises are proven to help clear blockages within our body while inspiring imagination, creativity and heightening brain function. Meditation also builds discipline and instills balance, and after all, what is a writer’s life without balance and discipline.
4. Read More
When we read, our minds will often drift, wander and reveal hidden ideas. Even reading newspapers and magazines can offer food for thought and inspirational stories that can inform, influence and inspire what we write. A good writer is a well-read writer.
5. Be A Better Listener
When you stop and listen you never know what you may hear and see. Fascinating stories, ulterior motivations, hidden agendas, personal cues; when we listen we become far more perceptive to the human condition and the world around us, and after all, writing is the study of the human condition and the world around us.
6. Be Grateful
Keeping a positive attitude and being grateful for what one has is a free state of mind void of hindrances and bitterness that can possibly cloud our thinking and block the channeling of our creative energies.
7. Socialize More Often
Join writers groups, attend networking events and get out more with friends in 2015. Writing can be an intensely internal and isolating experience. Having a group of friends who share your interests, or can act as a healthy distraction to your interests (life is not all about writing), is essential to keeping a balanced lifestyle. To write strong characters, one needs to be a good study of people, and to study people, one must socialize.