Writing resolutions are great, but don’t let them rule your life.

What did you want to accomplish this year? Did you want to pursue your talents? Did you want to write more often? Did you want to finish that story? Try poetry? Whatever your resolution was, breaking it is only natural.

Life is busy, and it waits for no one. Don’t be cross with yourself for “failing”. No one really fails. They are just procrastinating, always thinking tomorrow will be different. It happens with diets. It happens with smoking. It happens with writing, too. The main thing is to pick yourself up the next day and make a new resolution. And should you fail that day, too, make a new resolution the following day.

Daily resolutions are the only kind that really accomplish anything. So now is the time to make your daily resolve. Here are a few ideas to help you refocus.

Break your writing time into small chunks that you can work into any day. Fifteen minutes is a good choice. That gives you five minutes to clear your mind and ten minutes to get into the groove. You’d be surprised what you can write in fifteen minutes.

Here’s a true story. An unpublished woman wrote and finished a book by writing fifteen minutes a day on her lunch hour. She sent it to an editor. He bought it, and she got it published. Writers, you make your own limitations, and you make your own chances in life.

When you sit down to write, if you don’t see any inspiration, don’t let that concern you. You can write about your work, your boss, a rude clerk in the store, a nice person you met, your mate, how you want to remodel the house, or what kind of shopping you would like to do. What matters is that you string your words together in proper English, proper punctuation, and good thought patterns. Everything you write has meaning. It shows your attitude, your interest, your opinion, your intentions, your psychological status, and so much more.

Write at the same time every day, if at all possible. That is the key to wanting to write. If you write at the same time every day for a week, you will begin to feel the urge to write. When you resist that urge because you choose to do something else, the urge will be less the next day. Put writing at the top of your priorities.

Writing at the same time every day will bring the muse. If you don’t know what the muse it, you will know it when it hits you. It will be hard to type as fast as your mind delivers the content. You won’t want to stop. You won’t want to be disturbed. You won’t want to do anything but write… and that is the muse. Cherish it. Love it. Obey it when it calls. The muse is to a writer what a car is to a driver. It is your vehicle to transport you from this world into the one you create. For more free writing tips, see below.