New Year’s Writing Resolutions: Steps to Success!

Don’t you just love it when people make resolutions for the new year? How many people that you know give up on a resolution once they break it? Really, whoever said that if you fail [or fall] once that you must quit altogether? Well, the good news for article writers is that the measure of your success is not weighed by one article or even by article writing itself. It is an “attitude” that you must present, one that you need to have on December 31st as well as on January 1st. Here are some tips toward helping you in the upcoming year:
1. Write Frequently. I won’t suggest what “write frequently” should mean to you, but what it should mean is that you come up with a set output that works for you. Nothing ventured, nothing gained means this: you haven’t challenged yourself to bigger and better things. Think about this: whatever “x” number of articles you write during the coming year will be added to the total that you have written so far. If you want free exposure for your site, then article writing is the best way to go.
2. Submit Smartly. A fellow author recently boasted to me that he submitted one of his articles to over thirty different sites. Well, good for him! In reality, he just wasted his time. What am I saying? As it turns out, several of the sites he submitted to are not well ranked by Google, a few others stripped out his links, and a third set are what I and others would consider to be “bad neighborhoods.” Better to concentrate on a few good sites with your two or three wonderful links in the resource box than to spend extra time submitting the article to less than stellar sites. That bit of “wasted time” could best be spent on writing another article!
3. Blog With Discipline. I finally got serious about blogging just this past month. In some ways I am glad that I waited, but in other respects I wish I had jumped in sooner. Had I realized what a pithy paragraph or two of daily missives could generate in the way of increased traffic, I would have begun blogging long ago. Let’s just say that I am committed to blogging for the upcoming year! How about you?
4. Overhaul Your Site. You do have your own web site, don’t you? No, I don’t mean the one or two pages that come with your DSL account, rather your well thought out, carefully designed, and frequently updated web site, right? If you have a site and it hasn’t had any serious overhaul in several years, time for you to take a closer look at it and give it an update. Yes, refresh the copyright information to include the current year. Listing “copyrighted 2001” gives readers the impression that your site hasn’t been updated in years. Ouch!
One of my favorite expressions in life is this: “Winners never quit; quitters never win.” If you fall down, get up and keep on working toward your goals. An entire army of authors are rooting for you and encouraging you on. Should you find yourself missing your goals, simply continue where you left off and you will be the better for it.
Happy new year to you and yours…now start writing!