Lauren van Vliet, author

In Monday’s post, I talked about leveling up areas of my life. I used fairly broad, vague concepts, so today I want to break down three things I’ve been doing to level up my writing during the pandemic lock down, and three ways how I’m hoping to keep up it in the future.

1. Writing, writing, writing.  And I’m still writing. All of the words I get on the page are practice. They’re not all brilliant, but they are helping me get better. To give you a sense of just how much I’ve been writing: I have an excel sheet to track my word count goals for the day, month and year. In April and May, I wrote a total of 57, 671 words, between blog posts and a novel project. That’s more words than I’d written in January, February, and March combined.
2. Reading craft books. A friend joked recently that I have a library of craft books accumulating (and she’s not wrong). To make sure they fulfill their intended purpose, I read most days. How much depends on the day. Ideally, I would start and finish a chapter, but on days I’m in a hurry or not focused, I’ll read a second or two.
3. Listening to Harry Potter. I know that’s really specific, and I’m sure listening to other books would have a similar effect, but during the pandemic it’s been Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. I’ve read the books more times than I can count, but I’m noticing so many things as I listen to the book. I think some of the things I’m noticing, especially the foreshadowing, is noticeable specifically because I know the books so well. It can only help to learn from the greats.

And now a few ways that I’m planning to continue leveling up my writing:

1. Being realistic with my goals. Writing a lot of words and having record breaking days and months feels great in the moment, but if I’m not careful it will leave me felling burned out. Leveling up by writing lots of words won’t do me any good if I burn out in the process.
2. Listening to podcasts (or YouTube videos). I’m already doing this some, but I plan to be more intentional about it. This is especially true as life returns to normal, and I have less time to read craft books. Listening to podcasts or videos is a great way to multitask while I’m cleaning, or folding laundry.
3. Experimenting with a new genre. I’m in the very early stages of this project, but I am planning a new shorter project to work on this summer. I’m hoping that the very nature of the project will help me practice story structure, which is something that I’ve been working on intentionally over the last year or so. Don’t worry, I’ll be sure to let you know about the new project soon!
4. Learning some new skills. I’m exploring options to learn more about other topics related to writing, but aren’t writing themselves (think like marketing, or graphic design). I’m sure these skills will pay off in other areas of my life, but I’m hoping it will assist with some of the behind the scenes, business aspects of writing.