With the new year quickly approaching, many writers are asking themselves how they can utilize this symbolic new beginning to improve their craft. Whether you’re looking to reach a certain word count every week, engage more with your literary community, or simply write more, we’re here to offer you some ways to get closer to those goals.
For the writer who’s looking to hold themselves accountable, the Write or Die website (they also have an iOS app!) discourages procrastination using a variety of different modes that you can choose from to suit whatever motivates you best. Reward mode gives you positive reinforcement when you reach your word count goals; stimulus mode lets you set up a positive virtual writing environment (like a calming image of the woods or ambient sounds of cats purring) that disappears when you stop writing; and consequence mode sets up negative consequences to be enforced when you don’t reach your set goals, such as “kamikaze mode,” which will begin to annoyingly sabotage your words and switch around letters after a failed goal.
Another option is 750 words, an app that urges you to write around three pages every day, giving you points for each word, and analyzes the themes, mindsets, and feelings of your work, as well as how often you get distracted and how fast you write, then creating charts that display that information back to you. Super useful for anyone looking to amp up the amount of writing they do each day, even if it’s just free-writing!
Becoming more involved in your local 
writer’s community is another surefire way to revitalize your writing life in 2019. Here at The Writing Barn, we host events that will introduce you to a welcoming and incredibly supportive community of creatives. Our Write. Submit. Support. Workshops last six months and are designed to help you live your fullest literary life. Online meetings and deadlines make it easy to work around your schedule, and our Zoom classrooms and monthly sessions provide community, feedback, and writing lessons and exercises to take with you after the class ends.
You can also browse our class listings to see if any of our options work for you, and if they don’t– no worries! There’s plenty of ways to get involved, especially in a town bursting at the seams with creative energy like Austin.
Maybe attend a literary event at one of the many amazing independent bookstores here in town, like Malvern Books’ interview series, Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice, happening next on January 15, or Bookwoman’s Second Thursday Open Mic hosted every month. Not only will you be putting yourself out there in the literary community of Austin, you’ll be supporting local businesses! And how cool is that?
We’ve established that there are tons of resources for writers both on the internet and in Austin, but it’s up to you to take advantage of them! If your new year’s resolution involves becoming more immersed in your writing this 2019, you’ve got all the tools at your disposal. Now forge ahead– and take agency in shaping your literary life path this year!
by Kat Shuttlesworth