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Do You Have a Goal for Your Writing? · The Daily Writer

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Daily Rider Podcast, where we bring you tips and inspiration each day to help you build habits for writing success.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: For more resources, including your free Daily Rider Starter Kit, visit DailyWriterLife.com.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: We're doing a short series on writing habits here in the podcast, and today we're going to start talking about several practices to help you actually build a writing habit.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: So let's dive in with practice number one, which is establish a specific goal for your writing.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: If you hang around other writers long enough, you'll hear a lot of talk about habits.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, after all, you're listening to this podcast about habits right now.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: However, the point of developing a writing habit is not really the habit itself.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: The habit is just a mechanism to help you get the writing done.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: But the question is, what are you writing?
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: What's the end product that this writing habit should be producing?
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: So, really what I'm saying here is that writers like to talk a lot about journals and the kind of pens you should use and where you should write and when you should write and all these things related to habits.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: But before we get into all that stuff, I want you to think about what is it that this habit is actually supposed to be producing for you.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: So to that end, I encourage you to set some type of goal, since this is the point of doing all this writing work to begin with.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Stephen Pressfield, author of The War of Art, said this.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: This is the other secret that real artists know and wannabe writers don't.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: When we sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: The muse takes notes of our dedication.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: She approves.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: We have earned favor in her sight.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: When we sit down and work, we become like a magnetized rod that attracts iron filings.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Ideas come.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Insights accrete.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I love that quote because there's real power in simply sitting down and doing the work.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: So my question is, what are you working toward?
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Is it a book?
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Is it a weekly blog post?
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Is it podcast episodes you're writing like I've done with this one?
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Is it freelance work or ghostwriting work?
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: What is it?
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't really matter what it is.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: The point is that I think it's vital to have something that you're working toward, some type of tangible goal that's important to you.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: So here's today's question What is a writing goal that you're working toward right now?
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Today's episode is an excerpt from our brand new ebook, How to Build a Writing Habit.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: You can get this for free along with six other ebooks on writing, as part of our free Daily Rider Starter Kit.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Just go to dailywriterlife.comslash free.