2026 New Year's Writing Resolution: Listen

Every year, I make a New Year's Resolution just for writing. I don't bother with personal resolutions, because I never keep them. (Seriously, in what universe was I ever going to give up chocolate?) But, without fail, I always keep my writing resolutions. 

In past years, I have made writing resolutions to Write What I Feared (we must all face our writing demons), and to get more rejections than C. S. Lewis. (He got over 800; I've gotten well over a thousand.) (I'm not proud.) In 2020, I resolved to begin (facing a blank screen is always daunting) and the following year, to finish what I had started. (This is a perennial problem for writers such as myself, who have a wealth of ideas, but short attention spans.) 

I have resolved to read, because it is only through reading and re-reading that we hone our writing skills, and I have resolved to observe the ordinary, because observing what goes on around us is the basis of all subject matter. 

Perhaps most important of all, I have resolved to be true to my own work - that is to say, to not conform to what I think an audience might like (or dislike, as the case may be), but to be loyal to my own message. Most writers may not realize it, but ignoring a prospective audience is actually quite difficult, especially once editors and publishers get hold of your manuscript. 

Where was I? Oh yes... resolutions...

After giving it much thought, I have come to the conclusion, much like Frank Herbert, that as far as writing is concerned, story is everything. I don't just mean the stories in your head. I talking about the stories you hear.

It occurred to me the other day that I could remember every story that anyone had ever told me—even stories from strangers I'd only met once. They had said something to me that resonated., and  I simply never forgot their story. A good number of these stories have served as inspiration for some of my short work, and even a novel.

The question that comes to mind is: How many stories do we miss when we are planning what we are going to say, instead of listening? We tend to remember things that have a strong emotional impact. But what of the other kinds of stories, the more mundane tales of misadventures, the humorous antics of children, travels? 

These are the ones we miss, because when we are focused on adding something similar in our lives, something to continue the conversation, we lose track of what we are being told. 

It is essential for fiction writers to pay attention to the stories people tell. Listen carefully, because while we may believe we are inventing stories, in reality we are telling the stories of all the people we have ever met ... and quite a few that we haven't. Unlike nonfiction (which is sometimes invented out of whole cloth), fiction must, in the deepest sense, be fundamentally true.

2025 New Year's Writing Resolution (for writers): Recycle Your Work

Every year, I make a New Year's Resolution just for writing. I don't bother with personal resolutions, because I never keep them. (I have not, for example, run the Boston Marathon, cured cancer, or finished my PhD...yet.) But, without fail, I do keep my writing resolutions. 

In past years, I have made writing resolutions to Write What I Feared (we must all face our writing demons), and to get more rejections than C. S. Lewis. (He got over 800; I clocked in at a measly 160 that year.). In 2020, I resolved to begin (facing a blank screen is always daunting) and the following year, to finish what I had started. (This is a perennial problem for writers such as myself, who have a wealth of ideas, but little patience.) 

I have resolved to read, because it is only through reading and re-reading that we hone our writing skills, and I have resolved to observe the ordinary, because observing what goes on around us, and listening, really listening, with the heart as well as the ears, is the basis of all subject matter. 

Perhaps most important of all, I have resolved to be true to my own work - that is to say, to not conform to what I think an audience might like (or dislike, as the case may be), but to be loyal to my own message, my own thoughts, my own feelings. Most writers may not realize it, but ignoring a prospective audience is actually quite difficult, especially once editors and publishers get hold of your manuscript. 

Where was I? Oh yes...

After resolving to get off my butt and get published, and, miraculously, having done so, and having started, finished, faced my writing demons, observed, revised, and re-read the greats ... what is left?

Nothing. I am completely bereft of ideas.

No, just kidding. I do have one goal this year. Over the past few years (or is it decades?), I have gotten a number of short pieces published. It was exhilaring to see my work in print. So, like an addict, I kept pursuing the intoxication of publishing new work. Meanwhile, my older stories (some of which are quite good, even if I do say so myself), have been forgotten in my lust for novelty. 

There is simply no excuse for abandoning your prior work, especially when it has appeared in journals which are now defunct. (My strategy has always been to submit to print journals first. That allows me to submit to online journals later.)

So, this year, I shall delve into my neglected writings and recycle them. There are plenty of journals that accept reprints, and, because I happen to have a list of them right here, I shall begin to recycle.

*    *    * 

If you want to follow in my footsteps, this is my excellent list: 185 Literary Magazines Accepting Reprints. You are welcome to make ample use of it.

Previous resolutions (all of which are worth following in case you're stuck for inspiration):

2024 New Year's Writing Resolution: Revise Your Darlings

2023 New Year's Resolution for Writers: Motivation

2022 New Year's Writing Resolution: Observe the Ordinary

2021 New Year's Resolution for Writers: Read

2020 New Year's Resolution for Writers: Begin

2019 New Year's Resolution for Writers: To Thine Own Work Be True

2018 New Year's Resolution for Writers: Finish

New Year's Resolution: Write What You Fear

2016 - Your Year to Get Published!

A New Year's Resolution - For Writers (Get rejected!)

2024 New Year's Writing Resolution: Revise Your Darlings

William Faulkner is purported to have coined the phrase: "Kill all your darlings." (Although that maxim is attributed to Faulkner, Arthur Quiller-Couch had advised writers to "murder your darlings" decades earlier in 1914.) As a piece of writing advice, "kill your darlings" is simply a warning not to become too enamored with your lovingly created turns of phrase. Like Pygmalion, falling in love with own's own creation doesn't necessarily turn out well for the creator.

This year, in keeping with my tradition of making a New Year's writing resolution, I have resolved, not to kill my darlings, but to rephrase them. I have come to the realization that my work needs some rather drastic pruning. So, I am going to revise.

Writers tend to focus on composition. The act of creation is not only enjoyable, it provides an invigorating boost to the ego. Composition relies on talent, the innate ability to observe, and put those observations into words (or music, or any art form) in a way that is memorable. But while composition begins with talent, which I maintain can't be taught, it ends with revision, which is a skill that has to be learned. 

Revising your own work requires distance. You have to read it as if you didn't write it. That is not easy. Once you have expressed something with language, those words become imprinted in your mind. Not only are they hard to forget, it is very difficult to change those words in any major way. And, of course, there is the dilemma of not knowing if they even need changing.

The best way to revise is to put your work down for a long time, not just a few days, or even weeks, but months. Write something else. Populate your mind with other words, other observations, other stories. Then, once you are thoroughly distanced, go back to your previous work and read it, not as its creator, but as a reader does, with fresh eyes.

Then ask yourself a simple question: "Am I bored?"

Good writing is not boring. It engages the senses, and stimulates thought. Most of all, it produces an emotional response. If your writing doesn't make you feel as if you are there, it needs to be revised. Descriptions need to be more vivid, insights fully expressed, feelings generated. As a writer, your writing needs to make you, its creator, laugh, cry, shrink back in horror (but in a good way).

So, dear writers, come with me on my 2024 quest to take a hacksaw to my writing and transform it into something more perfect, more genuine, more ... just more.  

(Image: Lightspring)

2023 New Year's Resolution for Writers: Motivation

Greta Stern

Every new year I make a writing resolution. In past years, I have resolved to begin projects and to finish them. I've resolved to observe the ordinary, and to read. I've resolved to write what I most feared and to get more rejections than C. S. Lewis. (He got 800 before he was published.) To my credit, I have managed to fulfill all my resolutions - even C. S. Lewis' stunning number of rejections. (I've gotten well over a thousand, but that's counting rejections for everything I've written.) (Yeah, so I cheated... so sue me.)

All of these were great resolutions, and I have done my best to follow them. After all, a promise is a promise. But where to now? I have read; I have written, I have been rejected (yet even other more additional times). I have begun projects and finished them. I have faced fear in a mirror. What's left?

For writers, what's left is discipline. Having been trained in classical music, and undergone the bootcamp known as "conservatory of music," I don't lack self-discipline. But what I do lack is motivation. Sitting down to write takes discipline. But it also takes motivation. We have to want to sit in front of a blank screen (or a blank piece of paper if you are old-fashioned) and we have to want to do it whether we receive accolades (although those help), or prizes (those really help), or publication (man, does that help!). We have to do it during the soul-sapping mental paralysis of the continuing covid pandemic and the loss of a reality we thought was eternal. (It never is.)

The reason we have to want to face that fearsome blankness is that we are writers because we have something to say. The moment we forget that, and begin to focus on the anticipated, much-hoped-for (and largely imaginary) social and financial rewards of writing, we lose the reason for writing. If we have nothing to say, then there really is no point in putting pen to paper.

So, dear writers, what do you have to say? Do you have thoughts about life, human nature, the state of the world? Do you fear for humanity's survival, take joy in random acts of kindness, blush (or retreat) when someone says "I love you"? 

Take some time out to focus. Then sit your butt down and write. It's important.

2022 New Year's Writing Resolution: Observe the Ordinary

Last year I made a resolution to re-read some of the books that have impressed me with their brilliant prose, their poetic insights, their ability to make me lose myself completely in another time and place. These are the books I hug after I get to the last line, unwilling to give them back to the library. Eventually, I will  purchase them to display on shelves where I can gaze upon their spines, and open them when the mood strikes me, to revel once again in the joy of fine prose.

Why then, do I keep devouring Anne Tyler novels? Between reading Cloud Cuckoo Land and Piranesi, both of which are magnificent recent contributions to the literary world, I read Anne Tyler novels - ten of them, to be precise. Tyler has written twenty-four novels. She churns them out every year or so like a litter of kittens, barely taking a breath before the next one pops out. There is no need for her to research her books. They all take place in Baltimore, where she lives. They all revolve around somewhat dysfunctional families and marriages, which I assume she has experience with. And they all have happy-ish endings. She even recycles her characters, dressing them up in new bodies, but keeping all their old foibles and quirks. I view these characters as variations on a theme, not as individuals. Indeed, I had a hard time remembering any of their names, even while I was reading about them. And yet, like popcorn, I couldn't consume just one of her books, even though none of them seemed to have plots.

Why are Tyler's novels so addictive? I believe the answer is literally as plain as the nose on your face. Tyler does not take us to another time and place. Nor does she delve into anything that is outside of our experience. There are no bombs about to explode, no hair-raising chase scenes, no imminent threats. There are no detailed descriptions of the siege of Constantinople, or excursions into the tangled prisons of a deranged mind. There are no new worlds to discover. Instead, her novels are loaded with descriptions of the familiar. Her dialogue is what we hear in everyday speech. Her characters are ordinary, not outstanding, or even memorable, much like strangers you might encounter on a grocery check-out line. And nothing of note ever happens to them. In short, her subject matter is relentlessly mundane.

That is precisely what makes her books so easy to read. It is their utter familiarity. With each and every phrase, we are reminded of things we already know. Reading is simply an act of recognition. The question is, how does one write a book that is as effortless to read as an Anne Tyler novel ... without being boring? Without being predictable? For it is unpredictability that keeps readers turning the pages.  

I have resolved this year to solve that puzzle. 

In 2022 I am going to pay attention to the mundane. I have to face facts: I'll never write like an Anthony Doerr or a Susannah Clarke. I don't have their talent. But what I can do is look around me, pay more attention to my locale, describe it in terms that are familiar, I can listen - really listen - to people when they talk. The content is less important than the style of their delivery. I can watch what people do in everyday settings. And I can try to find the unpredictable in life. There is certainly enough of it.  

Like all creative endeavors, the trick to writing is to make it appear effortless, natural, unstudied. Because it is only by entering into the familiar recesses of a reader's mind that people can forget they are reading. And that brief amnesia, my lovely readers and writers, is a writer's ultimate goal. 

2021 New Year's Resolution for Writers: Read

Every new year I make a writing resolution. In past years, I have resolved to begin projects and to finish them. I've resolved to write what I most feared and to get more rejections than C. S. Lewis. (He got 800 before he was published.) To my credit, I have managed to fulfill all my resolutions - even C. S. Lewis' stunning number of rejections. (I've gotten well over a thousand, but that's counting rejections for everything I've written. So I've fudged that resolution a bit.) And I have resolved to stick to my guns in the face of those rejections, and be true to my work.

This year, I am resolving to read. Sometimes writers forget that reading is how we nourish ourselves. It's true that we need to observe to world around us, to think, to ponder. But in order to write we must tackle the task of reading - not just for pleasure, but with the critical eye of a writer.

Who are your favorite authors? If you had to give someone your personal list of the top ten best writers, who would they be? More to the point, why? Did they touch your heart and then break it? Did they write such vivid descriptions that you saw, heard, felt what they were describing? Did they make observations so profound that you viewed the world in a whole new light? Did they give you "aha!" moments? Were some of their phrases so beautiful that you could not continue, but had to stop to read them again and again? Did their beauty make you catch your breath?

Read those books once more. Analyze them. How did those writers create those emotions in you? How exactly? You won't be able to accomplish what those authors managed to do precisely the way they did it, but reading them with a microscope will give you pointers. You will look at words and sentence structure differently. You will begin to sense the rhythm and melody in dialogue. Like music, those cadences will open you up. You will explore language through someone else's inner voice.

What books will I re-read?

The Music Room by Dennis McFarland. I couldn't stop reading this book. McFarland kept my eyes glued to the page. He really gets inside his characters. How does he do it?

Anthony Doerr's Memory Wall. Actually, anything by Anthony Doerr will do. He is a poetic writer. Every word is evaluated, weighed, considered, and reconsidered before it is finally chosen. 

Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeline Thien. I'm cheating with this one, because I've already started reading it for the first time. But I know I will have to read it again. Her writing style is thoroughly engaging, and she has insightful observations which stop me dead in my tracks.

Martin Cruz Smith's Arkady Renko series, starting with Gorky Park. Martin Cruz Smith has the ability to deftly establish a character with a stroke of the pen. He never overstates, which means he is a master of economical language.

David Foster Wallace, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. I don't have Wallace on my "top ten" list, but I will re-read him because his writing style is the exact opposite of mine. I find Wallace's incredibly long sentences liberating. It feels like swimming.

Torch  by Cheryl Strayed is an example of crystal clear writing. You don't feel as if you are reading.

William Gibson's Pattern Recognition is well-worth re-reading. He has the ability to create a world which is familiar, yet isn't. He keeps readers slightly off-balance and then he sucks them right in.

The Ground Beneath Her Feet is Salman Rushdie's best novel. (Don't argue with me.)

 I will re-read Ursula Le Guin's The Lathe of Heaven. Le Guin grabs her readers by their collars and throws them into a story. She creates worlds that are entirely believable.

White Noise by Don DeLillo. This is my favorite 20th-century novel. Honestly, I can't figure out how he did it, but I am going to try.

2020 New Year's Resolution for Writers: Begin

Pxfuel

I rarely make personal New Year's resolutions. (The one time I did, in 2018, it backfired so spectacularly, I will never resolve something personal again. I now take "Be careful what you wish for" very seriously.) However, all failures aside, I always make writer's resolutions. Those I follow faithfully, and without mishap.

In 2017, I resolved to write what I feared. In my case, it was a memoir. Fiction is easy to hide in. I can embed my quirks in a character or two, and write the truth without too much fear of exposure. A memoir was another matter entirely. All those secrets revealed, all that airing of linen, potentially quite dirty, all that risk. The very idea of writing a memoir terrified me.

So, I wrote one, because it was a resolution. And I am a woman of my word.

The following year, I resolved to finish, because my memoir was becoming a lengthy affair. At 120,000 words, and not even close to finishing, I was tempted to simply table the idea and get on with writing something more entertaining. But promises are promises, so I finished. The final product clocked in at 172,000 words, a length one agent characterized as "absurd."

Last year, I resolved to be true to my work. To thine own work be true is a piece of advice that is well taken for any writer. Writing for an audience, or for an agent, or a publisher, will only water down your work and turn it into something that says nothing. The only way your writing can achieve its full potential is if you say what you are compelled to say. Second guessing an audience will get a writer nowhere. So, I (mentally) told the agent who said my proposed memoir's length was "absurd" to go to hell, and added more.

This year, I am at an impasse. After spending two years spilling my guts out on paper, I feel emptied. Finishing a novel never has that effect on me; I only feel a sense of elation a "writer's high." But finishing my memoir about the two years I spent hitchhiking to Argentina has left me wondering what to do with myself. A novel? Another memoir? A screenplay? I don't know where to start.

I've come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter. The important thing is to begin, so that is my 2020 resolution: Begin.

Begin with a sentence, a phrase, a title. Begin with an image, song lyrics, something your mother told you when you were twelve. Begin with a phone conversation, an old letter, a shopping list. It doesn't matter how or what - just start. Inspiration will come after you begin to write. It always does.

So, dear writers, if you are staring at a blank screen ... write something on it. I promise it will take you somewhere you didn't expect to go. That is why we write, after all.

2019 New Year's Resolution for Writers: To Thine Own Work Be True

Pixabay

Every year, at about this time, I make a special New Year's writing resolution. To my credit, I have managed to carry most of them through. In 2017 I resolved to write what I feared. That resolution had to do with stretching my boundaries. I am a fiction writer, and I have terror of writing memoirs, so I began to write one. (And it has been every bit as frightening as I thought it would be.)

The following year, in the throes of memoir-phobia, I resolved to finish. Starting new projects is fun and exciting, but actually finishing them is another matter entirely. I promised myself I would finish writing my memoir in 2018. Sad to say, I failed. (In my defense, I did write more than 80,000 words of it. And I swear I will finish it before I die.)

This year, after giving much thought to the process of writing, I have resolved to ignore my potential audience, along with the requirements of agents and editors, and simply fulfill the potential of my work the best I can.

For writers, who lately have been saddled with all sorts of marketing tasks ("Who will read your book?" "Give us three comps," "Do you have an online platform?" and so forth.), simply maintaining loyalty to your work can get short shrift. What you have to say can get overshadowed by considerations of whether it will have market appeal, and if your hypothetical audience will want to read your words.

The primary loyalty of any author should be to the work itself. You have something to say? Then say it to the best of your ability, pushing all other considerations aside until you have fully expressed yourself. Once you have finished your book, it will take on a life of its own, much like giving birth to a baby. It will have its own personality, and it will acquire meaning, often independent of the one you have given it. But that will only happen if you devote yourself to putting the work first, and all other considerations second.

Now go tell your story, the way only you can.

2018 New Year's Resolution for Writers: Finish

Pixabay - Creative Commons License

Every year I write a New Year's Resolution on this blog. Last year I resolved to write what I feared. Writers tend to find a niche for themselves, be it a genre, like science fiction, or a form, like poetry. It's not a bad thing to have an area of expertise, but to truly expand, writers need to venture into unknown territory. Fiction writers need to experiment with nonfiction, poets with essays, memoirists with fiction.

Often these experiments produce godawful results, but just making the attempt to force one's mind into a different form of expression can awaken new areas of creativity.

Not being a hypocrite (well, not much), I embarked valiantly on the form of writing I most feared: the truth. Writing in first person about actual events has always made me squirm, and just as I suspected, writing my memoir proved to be about as entertaining as pulling my own teeth. I got nowhere for months. And then, voila! I realized it was the same as writing fiction! There is a story arc, characters to develop, a whole world to explore.

So, now that I have faced my terror, there is only one more resolution in store for me.

Finish.

How many of us have half-written novels, notes for short stories and essays, books in need of revision, ideas languishing on the backs of envelopes in illegible scrawls? I certainly do. These half-completed projects have begun to haunt me, like pets I have forgotten to feed. They follow me around in my mind, whining pitifully.

My New Year's Resolution is to feed my little darlings, wrap them up in comfy prose, tuck them in with some nice plot structure, put them out of their half-finished misery, even when I am not motivated, inspired, or even thrilled. Finishing is a responsibility.

This year I will finish every one of my stories.

(Oh God, what have I just committed myself to?)

New Year's Resolution: Write What You Fear

Every new year I make a resolution, which I dutifully post on this blog. Many of those resolutions have been practical, aimed toward the goal of getting published.

For 2013, I posted a "Know Your Market" resolution. It was a good one. (Although I strongly suspect my market hasn't been born yet.) The following year I made a resolution to get more rejections than C. S. Lewis. (He got over 800; I clocked in at a measly 160.) Last year, I actually went ahead and made a publishing plan for myself, and for anyone else who might be listening. And I even got some stories published by following it.

This year, I am going to embark on unexplored territory. I mean that literally. This coming year I will face my deepest fear as a writer - not the daunting task of sending hundreds of queries, nor the overwhelming rejections, and not the sense of futility that comes with wondering if I am on the wrong track entirely.

In 2017, I am going to ditch all that and do something I have not yet done. I am going to write the thing I fear the most -  a memoir.

To most people, writing a memoir may not evoke a feeling of mind-numbing terror. But to me, it does. I write children's fantasy. Even my adult stories conscientiously avoid anything personal. They almost religiously skirt things that might point directly to me, or to any of the difficult, often painful. emotions experienced by adults. I am a feverishly private person, and to go down those paths makes me quake with cowardice.

And yet, I find I must. I have had the misfortune of having lived through a war, and that experience, with all its violence, pain, and loss, demands to be written in a time of national crisis.

Let me be clear; I really don't want to.

So, come with me. Let this be your year to confront the thing you don't want to write. Are you a non-fiction writer? Write a piece of fiction. Do you write speculative fiction? Write an essay. If you are frightened of writing a novel - do that. If you can't seem to conquer the short form, go ahead. Write a poem. Write a history book. Do anything you have never attempted. Because to try out new forms, new ideas, new media will only expand you.

Ta-Nehisi Coates got it right when he said, "The craft of writing is the art of thinking."

Go forth into 2017, and think.

2016 - Your Year to Get Published!

I consider New Year's resolutions to be a culturally sanctioned form of torture, providing false hope for a week or two before plunging us all into a bottomless well of guilt for the remainder of the year.

Because I dislike psychological abuse, I have kept my writing resolutions quite reasonable over the years.

In 2013, I resolved to research my market. That was an excellent resolution, and one which I am still trying to fulfill. The obvious purpose behind researching my market was to develop a marketing plan well in advance of publication. It was a practical, if unexciting, resolution. One day I mean to keep it.

In 2014, I went for something more thrilling. I resolved to get more rejections than C. S. Lewis. He got 800, so it was a tall order to fill. Nonetheless, I am proud to say I did manage to get well over a hundred rejections (and I am still getting them!). I reasoned that by inoculating myself with repeated rejections, my work would eventually get accepted somewhere.

This year, I have set my sights even higher. My goal is to get published, come hell or high water. That means getting more stories published, writing essays, reviews, hmm ... I'll thrown in some irate letters to the editor - and while I'm at it, I'll publish my book.

Here is my plan. Feel free to join me.

Submit stories to publications that actually want them. Last year, I submitted my stories all over the place, and they racked up an impressive number of rejections. But, the literary magazines that eventually published my stories did so because what I sent them was exactly what they were looking for. This year, rather than blitz the market, I will spend more time reading the publications I am wooing in order to make sure they are a good fit. (Here is a list of 217 paying markets. Among those, there should be several that will provide good homes to our little darlings.)

Query agents who are looking for my genre - and style. Agents often list books they have enjoyed on their bios. They also give interviews. It's worth doing a bit of research before querying.

Submit to publishers directly. Once I have exhausted my list of agents, I will submit to publishers. I have assembled quite a list of publishers that accept manuscripts directly from writers.

Go about submissions systemically and doggedly. I used to submit to a few places and stop when I was turned away. My last year's resolution is still racking up the rejections, so by now my skin is nice and thick. I will not let rejections deter me.

Let's finish our projects, submit them, and get them published! This is our year!

Bookmark this post! When you get your story or article (or book) published, leave a comment.

A New Year's Resolution - For Writers

It's January 1st, and I can guess what you have resolved for 2014, because every writer makes the same New Year's resolutions.

I will finish my novel

I will start my novel

I will write more/better/faster

I will find an agent

I will get published

... and so on

Chances are, you will make the same resolutions next year. And they will be equally as futile.

The problem is that you are setting your sights too low. If you are going to make a resolution, make it big.

This is my New Year's Resolution:

This year I will get more rejections than C. S. Lewis.
(Click here if you don't know how many rejections he received.)

The reason I have chosen this for my resolution is that I can't get rejections if I don't send queries, and the number of queries I send reflects how committed I really am. (Of course, I can't send queries if I haven't finished my project. And I can't finish my project if I don't work on it every day. That goes without saying.)

The point is, if you aim for getting rejected more times than, say, F. Scott Fitzgerald, you just may end up writing The Great Gatsby.

And if C.S. Lewis and F. Scott Fitzgerald don't inspire you, try these rejections on for size:

Lord of the Flies by William Golding - 'an absurd and uninteresting fantasy which was rubbish and dull.'

Gertrude Stein - 'I cannot read your M.S. three or four times. Not even one time. Only one look, only one look is enough. Hardly one copy would sell here. Hardly one. Hardly one.'

Rudyard Kipling - 'I'm sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just don't know how to use the English language.'

And, my personal favorite:

The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum - 'unreadable'

These authors didn't quit, and neither should you. But, you can't quit if you don't start. So, join me this year.

Let's get rejected 800 times.

Your New Year's Resolution

1/9/24

It's the new year. You are already thinking ahead to new goals, new projects, and you are determined to accomplish them. Knowing writers, I can predict what your New Year's resolutions will be:

I will write 1000 words a day (after all, Hemingway did it, and he was a journalist)

I will finish my novel (it's been seven years … )

I will start my novel (it's been ten years … )

And so on.

This year, I am going to make the whole breast-beating, self-flagellating, bound-to-fail experience of New Year's resolutions a lot easier for you. Here's your resolution:

I will research my market.

(My computer has a Big Brother camera on it. I can see the expression on your face.)

Writers don't like marketing and promoting their work. But that's not because it is a venal, distasteful, and ungentlemanly task. It's because we don't know how to do it. Marketing belongs to the business world, not the artistic world. As a writer, you prefer to wear only one hat. As a writer in today's entertainment-driven world, you can't.

Rule #1: Know Your Market

Knowing your market – who will buy your book, how many people there are in this group, how you will reach them – is the key to success. Even if you are lucky enough to get an agent who will sell your work to a publishing house, the first thing he or she will ask you is: What is your market? How many people are in it? How will you reach them? What books compete with your own? How is your book different? Why will people want to buy it? (A tip: The answers to these questions should go in your query letter.)

In order to address these questions (and you must be able to), you need to do some research. Go to Amazon and type in keywords to locate books similar to yours. What is their ranking? Go to a Barnes & Noble. What's on their shelves? (Believe it or not, print publications still matter.) Are you offering something new? Will your book fill a gap?

Who will buy your book? That depends on what you are writing, of course. Let's say you are writing a romance. (Half of all fiction being published today is comprised of romance novels.) Generally speaking, women buy romance novels – more specifically, women who don't have a lot of time. Romance novels are short, therefore your market consists of women who have small children and/or time-consuming jobs and a curtailed sex life.

If you want to reach this market, you have to know where these women go. What websites are they visiting, what blogs do they read, what books do they buy? If you can't answer those questions off the top of your head, go to: https://books.feedspot.com/romance_book_blogs/ and take a look.

No matter what you write, there is a market for your work. If you want people to read what you write, spend an hour a day researching who those people are.

And last, but not least, read books that are designed for entrepreneurs, because that is who you are!