5 Brilliant Tips to Hone Self-Accountability Skills as a Writer

by Peter Clarke

It takes fire in the belly and constant hunger to make a difference with words and creativity to become a writer. The task of writing or the idea to pursue writing as a full-time career requires you to be self-disciplined on various grounds. No matter what you choose to become, an academic essay writer, blogger or ad copywriter, you have to be self-accountable. Gauging one’s progress and growth as a writer, identifying the setbacks and working on them constantly are some of the most crucial aspects.

Unless you know how to hone self-accountability skills and implement them in your work, becoming a successful writer will be a tough nut to crack. So, make sure you abide by the following five essential self-accountability tips to fuel your writing endeavours.

Happy reading!

1.     Maintain an Excel Sheet to record the daily word count

If writing is a serious business for you, then I feel safe to assume that you might be having bulk client projects to work daily. It's a known fact there will be a specific word limit and targets to meet each day or at the end of the month. This is where the significance of self-accountability comes in. You can always put an effort to maintain a spreadsheet and record your daily word count as well as the deficit you need to compensate.

Here’s how:

®   Sign up with platforms like Google Sheets and list the number of days in the month in one column and include your daily word count in a separate column.

®   Keep updating the sheet every day and make changes in your calculations accordingly.

®   This will help you monitor and evaluate the number of words you have written on a day and the deficit you need to chase for the rest of the month.

Keeping track of your daily word count will also help you intimate your client regarding the targets achieved and other essentials constructively. You will also be able to showcase professionalism on your boss.

2.     Utilise the potential of habit tracking apps

With technology creating wonders worldwide, habit track applications can help people in several ways. Especially when it comes to ensuring self-accountability in writing, habit tracking apps have a major role to play.

Here’s everything you need to know.

®   Using applications such as Loop Habit Tracker and Habitica will help you monitor self-progress with automated alerts and notifications reminding.

®   If you want to maintain a healthy flow while writing, habit tracking apps will help you stay productive.

®   Moreover, clients want to deal with writers who are self-motivated and dedicated to meeting deadlines by all means.

®   The alert notifications sent by these apps will act as a wake-up call if you end up missing out on reworks, including an additional chunk of paragraphs and the likes.

So, isn’t it a productive decision to embrace this strategy and improve your self-accountability in writing?

3.     Set your own writing goals

Even though the concepts of writing habit and writing goals go hand in hand, they are a tad different. When you set writing goals, you plan how to approach a particular blog, ad copy or an article. You create your ways to conduct the needful research and the likes.

Here’s what you must know about establishing writing goals.

®   If you find any particular project too complicated, make a list of all the potential research platforms you would like to explore for the task.

®   You may refer to digital forums such as ResearchGate, Google Scholar, Semantic Scholar and the likes.

®   Once you are done establishing your research goals, move on to the segment of outlining the final draft of your write-up.

®   Now, set your deadline. For example, if you are associated with an architecture dissertation writing  firm and your client wants you to deliver the case study within 48 hours, stay ahead of it.

®   Make it a point to wrap up the case study within 36 hours. Approach the paper accordingly, accumulate all key findings beforehand and stun your client with delivery before the actual deadline.

That’s how you establish and meet writing goals. When it comes to self-accountability, you got to walk that extra mile and make your presence felt among thousands of others.

4.     Work on one writing project at a time

The term ‘multitasking’ may sound cool, but it isn't everyone's cup of tea. To be very honest, there’s no credibility being a multitasker, only to ruin too many jobs at the same time. Especially when you are writing, and there's creativity associated with the task, you must always attempt one project at a time.

Here are some recommended suggestions that will help you through the process.

®   Dedicate separate writing hours for various projects.

®   For example, if you have the same deadline for two different writing projects, then refrain from working on them simultaneously.

®   Instead, chalk out a plan and dedicate a couple of hours in the morning to working on Project A, and commence Project B in the afternoon.

®   That way, you will be able to maintain a fine balance while attending bulk projects with the same deadline.

After all, working on one task at a time is easier than trying to hop around multiple projects. If you attend one particular task with complete focus and diligence, the overall quality of your write-up will automatically level up. Think it over!

5.     Reward yourself often

You don’t need to wait for your clients or managers to appreciate your writing endeavours. Instead, you can reward yourself and appreciate your effort towards the achievement you're a part of. For example, if you have successfully finished the writing project much ahead of the deadline, writer can try rate my paper for writing error fix. &  it is an achievement. So, why would you wait for others to appreciate it while you can do a lot many things to cheer yourself?

Take note of these ideas and game up self-accountability like a pro.

®   Set deadlines in terms of submission before the actual deadline, or set goals to reach the mark of typing 10,000 words in a day.

®   Once you achieve something huge, reward your effort by buying yourself your favourite pair shoes, go on a movie date or take a casual break from work.

®   These are nothing but ways that will help you identify yourself as a promising writer who can climb up the ladder amid all obstacles.

All that matters is a pat on the back to get us going. At times, you need to be your cheerleader. If it can make you a better writer, more accountable human being and a go-getter, then what’s the harm in rewarding yourself?

Summing up,

It won't matter if you are a writer offering should use spell checker  or someone from the ad copywriting agency; we all are selling words at the end of the day. Let’s make it worthwhile. Refer to the strategies mentioned above, focus on the key pointers and make your move towards becoming a better writer with each passing day.

Keep hustling. Keep growing!

Author Bio: Peter Clarke is an experienced writer, associated with the Law assignment help forum MyAssignmenthelp.com. Apart from that, he is a motivational speaker,  Psychology dissertation writer, NGO activist and digital education program coordinator, coming from Glasgow, the United Kingdom.

Lyla Lee on Tapping into K-pop For Her YA Debut

Inspiration is a funny thing. It can come to us like a lightning bolt, through the lyrics of a song, or in the fog of a dream. Ask any writer where their stories come from and you’ll get a myriad of answers, and in that vein I created the WHAT (What the Hell Are you Thinking?) interview. Always including in the WHAT is one random question to really dig down into the interviewees mind, and probably supply some illumination into my own as well.

Today’s guest for the WHAT is Lyla Lee, author of the Mindy Kim series as well as the upcoming YA novel, I’ll Be The One (Katherine Tegen / HarperCollins). Although she was born in a small town in South Korea, she’s since then lived in various parts of the United States, including California, Florida, and Texas. Inspired by her English teacher, she started writing her own stories in fourth grade and finished her first novel at the age of fourteen. After working various jobs in Hollywood and studying Psychology and Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California, she now lives in Dallas, Texas. 

Ideas for our books can come from just about anywhere, and sometimes even we can’t pinpoint exactly how or why. Did you have a specific origin point for your book?

My YA debut, I’LL BE THE ONE, is the product of many different experiences, from how my uncle won a K-pop competition when I was in middle school to how my mom and I used to watch Korean talent competitions together when I was in middle school. But the most direct origin inspiration point for the book was when I first got into K-pop dancing in 2017. Winters in Northern California are rainy and cold, and I really needed a fun indoor workout routine/pick-me-up for the days when I needed a distraction from being on submission to publishers. This was actually before BTS got as popular as they are now, and I serendipitously stumbled on them purely because I was looking for fun K-pop choreographies (they consistently upload easy-to-follow dance practice videos on their YouTube channel). I was also a dancer before I became a writer—when I was three, I was fat-shamed into quitting ballet—so rediscovering my love for dance twenty years later inspired me to start writing I’LL BE THE ONE

Once the original concept existed, how did you build a plot around it?

I actually didn’t start writing the actual book until the last half of the following year. I usually take a couple of months to build up a story, and for this one, I spent a lot of time listening to Korean pop and hip hop. I also re-watched a lot of Korean music competition shows and watched other reality TV shows (my roommate at the time was binge-watching Keeping Up with the Kardashians so I watched a few episodes with her, lol) while working on this book. The hardest part of the book, plot-wise, was finetuning the competition structure so that it felt genuine and surprising, like a real reality TV show. I did this with the help of my brilliant editor and a friend that currently works in the K-pop industry. Other than that, I focused on emotional beats and developing character relationships as well as the relationship Skye had with herself, all of which I did through listening to music.

Have you ever had the plot firmly in place, only to find it changing as the story moved from your mind to paper?

Definitely! I am neither a plotter nor pantser but an odd hybrid of both. I do write an outline while I am thinking of the story, but then I follow the story wherever it takes me, sometimes even changing things based on the music I come across while writing the book. For example, in my original outline, Henry Cho, the love interest, was a stuck up, douchey celebrity model. So, a lot of plot beats were based off of that. But then I heard “Delicate” by Taylor Swift, which has the lines, “My reputation's never been worse, so/You must like me for me” as well as the surprisingly fragile “Is it cool that I said all that?/Is it chill that you're in my head?/'Cause I know that it's delicate.” These lines inspired me to change the story so Henry is more fragile and, thus perhaps, more relatable and human despite his fame, rather than being the indestructible celebrity I first thought him to be.

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Do story ideas come to you often, or is fresh material hard to come by?

I never run out of story ideas, which can be a blessing and a curse. I actually have the opposite problem where I’d come up with tons of ideas for scripts and novels but only be able to finish writing a small percentage of them since I’m a woefully slow writer. The rest slips through the cracks! 

How do you choose which story to write next, if you’ve got more than one percolating?

When I’m not writing, I’m constantly listening to YA audiobooks. So, I keep an eye out for trends and consult my agent on which project she thinks has the most potential. I also ask my writer friends about their honest opinions about my ideas. Finally, I try writing out a few of the ideas to see if they actually have legs on paper. Sometimes, ideas seem really cool but then fizz out after a few pages once I try writing them. If I feel like a story can continue past that, I work on it until it becomes a full-fledged novel.

I have 5 cats and 2 Dalmatian puppies (seriously, check my Instagram feed) and I usually have at least one or two snuggling with me when I write. Do you have a writing buddy, or do you find it distracting?

FIVE CATS!!! You are living your best life. My housemates have an adorable golden doodle that hangs out with me in the house while everyone else is at their regular 9-5 (I don’t work regular work hours for my non-writing job). Her name is Lulu and I love her. Temperamentally, she’s more like a cat than a dog in that she’s usually off by herself somewhere in the house rather than constantly needing attention. But she’s always down to play with me when I need a brain break, which helps me out a lot!

Top 10 Authors to Follow on Twitter for Writing Inspiration

by Marie Barnes

There is no arguing that occasionally we need something to prod us into the right way. To lead us onto the path of creative beginnings and sparkle our unkindled fuse of inspiration. We need inspiration to produce and to conceive uniqueness and originality. 

Every art feasts upon inspiration. Writing is no exception. Writing encapsulates inspiration. Irrefutably, there is no quality and engaging writing without either something that inspires you or someone to muse about. Therefore, we often venture out of our way to seek inspiration to fuel our creative engine. However, it might prove quite difficult to find someone to draw inspiration from.

What are the hallmarks of inspiration? We are inspired by certain individuals, oftentimes, on the basis of their past exploits and achievements, their strong will in seemingly insurmountable trials and tantamount passion. Today, we will take a scrupulous glance at some of those creative geniuses that can help you open the inspirational Pandora's Box. 

Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood has gained an unprecedented popularity and justifiably so. Her works are not only splendidly written, they pose questions that our modern society fears the most. Thought-provoking and unique might be the best epithets to describe her craft. She inspires many with pensive themes on so hotly debated topic of feminism. Recently adapted The Handmaid’s Tale is probably the most glaring example that exemplifies her tone of work while also emboldening and awakening your inner feelings.

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Dan Brown

Dan Brown is a writer of an exquisite nature. His works are not only entertaining and full of adventure but also, as he describes it, “positive catalyst for introspection”. He spawned a whole lot of controversy regarding his most famous and bestselling book The Da Vinci Code for being anti-Christian. Although his book simply depicts the other side of being and is an invaluable inspiration for someone who’s seeking new nuances to an all beaten spiritual story.

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Paulo Coelho

Paulo Coelho is an eccentric and impulsive author. That is in no way diminishes his literary ingeniousness. It empowers it. Before writing his one of the all-time best selling book The Alchemist, he claimed to have witnessed spiritual awakening, which enabled him to fathom how valuable and precious the life of his is. Whether you believe in stuff like this or not, the fact of the matter is that his works are laudable and deserve the praise they’ve harnessed. The story of The Alchemist is comforting and rewarding. It extrapolates onto the ideas of worry and unnecessary anxiety, presenting an inspirational view of the world.

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Ben Grant

Now let’s sidetrack from universally famous personalities to someone who’s less of a novelist but more of an educational figure. Ben Grant is English Literature Lecturer at Oxford who’s works encompass topics of quite an interesting nature. His main areas of interests are world literature, psychoanalysis and travel literature. His first published work Postcolonialism, Psychoanalysis and Burton: Power Play of Empire expands upon the famous explorer Francis Burton and his interactions with a non European contingent.

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R.L. Stine

Stine tapped into unusual genre or, better say, a mix of genres children’s literature, horror and science fiction. Quite bizarre, isn’t it? It panned out. His success has kept him second on the list of all time bestselling book series, accumulating an enormous list of achievements and praises. He also successfully transitioned his works into movie adaptations.

His success story is a living evidence of how even the strangest ideas and concepts can become stupendously original and wanting with the right execution.

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E.L. James

Fifty Shades is a relatively recent sensation. Its brave and enlivening depiction of sexually sensuous and romantic scenes have managed to amass a devoted audience. Fifty Shades steered in quite an uncharted territory that it can't but amaze how timely it struck the need of many. The need for something so frank and naked, so bold and mature that, looking back, we notice the untapped opportunity that now has been fulfilled. Evidently, it’s not for everyone, it didn’t garner an universal acclaim. Nevertheless, as we can see now, there is a target audience and it’s obscenely vast.

Success stories like that exude inspiration and facilitate risky ventures.

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George R.R. Martin

Creator of an iconic series of novels A Song of Ice and Fire or more commonly known as Game of Thrones. He put a titanic amount of work and creative force into Game of Thrones and it is now a paramount example of a medieval-fiction genre. He may not be the one who pioneered it but he, most definitely, is the one to promote it. His character depiction and depth are unmatched. He masterfully crafted a new living and breathing, harsh world from the ground up. It takes a true master to write it but it takes double that to come up with something like that. And now Game of Thrones is probably the most recognizable TV and book series out there. George R.R. Martin inspires us with diligence and creative vitality.

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Yuval Noah Harari

Who knew that history can be presented in such an ingenious and thought provoking way. Lo and behold Yuval did just that with his best selling book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. Not only is it written in a jesting and fun manner, it also manages to simultaneously convey to the reader the gravity and tragic connotations of the happenstance on the Earth.

Sapiens is a concoction of both: to enlighten and to entertain. It shows how engaging and immersive history class can be without insipid statements and unnecessary notions.

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Daniel H. Pink

Today we see the overabundance of motivational self-help books/guides that call to immediate action or give unsubstantiated promises. Daniel, on the other hand, calls for refining inner motivation towards something. Take up challenges and absorb new ideas and concepts because that is exactly what fuels our motivation and extols our creativity. Motivation is a Drive (name of his book) so we must do our best to keep it running.

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Marie Barnes is a Marketing Communication Manager at LinksManagement. She also writes for Photza, photo retouching service. She is an enthusiastic blogger interested in writing about technology, social media, work, travel, lifestyle, and current affairs.