New year, new opportunities to make all your writing dreams come true. Whether you’re continuing a book this year or working on writing a new one, you’ve probably got milestones you would like to hit in 2025. With writing, coming up with SMART goals for your book is easy (whether they’re part of your New Year’s resolutions or not). Write x amount of words each days or by a certain date. Complete a chapter each month. So on and so forth.

The hard part? Actually getting the writing done.

In this blog post, I’ll walk you through some ways to make working on your novel a little easier so you can check off all of your New Year’s resolutions by the time 2026 comes around.

Preparation: Outlining, Character Building, World Building, and More

Are you a plotter or a pantser? While I tend to find myself in the second category, it’s still important to prepare for success before diving into the writing process. As a fantasy writer, my books usually require a bit of world building on top of knowing the main plot points, important scenes, and character building. So what are some of the easiest ways to prep for writing your novel?

• Utilize technology built specifically for outlining and writing novels, like Scrivener.
• Build out an online white board to organize your novel planning. You can include things like character pictures, world maps, world building questions, character profiles, plot outlines, and more. I use Miro for this, but Canva has a great white board function as well.
• Make sure to flesh out your characters by doing character interviews so you can make them really come to life on the page when you are writing your novel.

Help Hold Yourself Accountable

10 years ago, it was easy for me to find the time to write and make progress on my novel. But let’s be real – at some point, making time to write isn’t always easy. You might be busy with school, work, extracurriculars, taking care of family, etc. And by the time you have a few hours of freedom, you’re exhausted and all you want to do is read a book, watch a show, or mindlessly scroll through social media. So how can you find a way to stay consistent and hold yourself account towards achieving your new year’s resolutions and finishing your novel?

• Set aside a certain amount of time every week to write and make sure that you commit to that. Find a comfy space and get rid of any distractions. Or, if you want to write more often, you could just write for 30 minutes a day. Any time writing is better than none at all.
• Use an online tracker, like Pacemaker, or create your own in a spreadsheet to help yourself work towards your goals. Sometimes seeing progress via numbers can help motivate you to write more (Oh, I only have this many words left towards my goal? Let’s see if I can get ahead!)
• Join a writing group! One of the easiest ways to set time aside and follow through with using that time to write is setting up a writing session with friends or other writers. Do writing sprints or just use the time to focus on casually writing for the duration of the session. (By the way, we have free monthly writing sessions on our Discord that we welcome you to join at any point!)

Working Though Writer’s Block

You’ve prepped for your novel and you’ve set aside the focus time, but the words just won’t flow out onto the page. We’ve all been there. Writer’s block sucks and it can be hard to move past. But there are many ways to work towards getting back on track so you can progress forward in your novel.

• Use different writing activities to get your inspiration flowing. Meagan shares a great exercise in this blog post where you ask “And Then…” in order to jot down all the ideas – good or bad – to help you figure out what to do next.
• Change your environment. If you’re writing in your office, try finding another comfy place in your house or outside to write. Get in the car and go write at a cafe. You could always go on a writing retreat by yourself or with a group to completely escape to a cozy town.
• Sometimes all you need is a moment to step from the computer to give your brain a moment to rest and reset. Take a walk and breathe in some fresh air. Take a few minutes to meditate and relax. Or take a break to make or run to a local cafe for a coffee, tea, or other refreshing drink.

Editing Your Novel

You’ve finished your first draft or maybe you’re ready to move onto your final draft. What now? Well, there are different ways to focus on editing your novel. If you’ve just finished your first draft, you’ll want to focus more on the big picture stuff – like inconsistencies in world building, plot holes, evaluating your writing style, etc. If you’re moving onto your third draft or anything after that, you’ll want to start fine-tuning your novel and start looking at syntax, word choices, grammar, and fact-checking. Here are some tips for handling these phases of editing.

• If you’re in a writing group, see if any other writers are willing to be beta readers – and maybe you can also help them with their novel. These are people who can help you with looking at the big picture and giving you some good feedback on plot, characters, world building, and more. Just be sure to be specific in what you are asking them to look at (i.e. plot and characters, not grammar or spelling checks)
• Take a step back from your novel. Sometimes it helps to take a week or so off from looking at your novel, so you can come back to it refreshed and ready to dig into making changes.
• Use an online editing tool to help make fine-tuning a little easier. Tools like Hemingway Editor, Grammarly, and ProWritingAid all have a variety of things that they can help with – whether it’s grammar or spell check.

While there are many more tips and tricks that I could share with you to help you achieve your writing new year’s resolutions, this blog post can only be so long. Stay tuned for more writing advice throughout the year – and the best of luck with your work in progress. Happy writing!