The Writing Life Plan
Aspects of a Writer
The Writing Life Plan: Getting Started
This assignment overview serves as reference point for a student project rather than as a checklist or outline. This guide is designed to get students thinking about how to represent their habits and plan in relation to the business of a writing life, sustaining an individual writing life, and fostering literary culture more broadly. The culminating Writing Life Plan should reflect the individual student’s ideas for developing fully as the writer that person aspires to be.The Writing Life Plan should be specific, honest, and feasible. The Writing Life Plan should be useful to now, even as one cannot predict exactly where one will go in five or ten years. It can be updated as constraints make adjustments necessary and as opportunities arise over time.
Alt Version: This overview serves as a reference point for an in-progress student driven project and an educational resource aimed at fostering thoughtful representation of the habits and plans students and writers can come to cultivate. This guide trends towards thinking in relation to the business of a writing life, sustaining an individual writing life, and fostering literary culture. This guide is in service of The Writing Life Plan that is specific, honest, and feasible. The Writing Life Plan is conceived as something current and hence useful to the now, even as one cannot predict exactly where one will go in five or ten years. It can be updated as constraints make adjustments necessary and as opportunities arise over time. The culminating Writing Life Plan should reflect the individual student’s ideas for developing fully as the writer that person aspires to be.
Some Topics to Consider
- Writing Schedule
- Goals as a Writer
- Writing Projects
- Reading & Research
- Submitting (and Publishing) Work
- Public Image and Social Media
- Freelance Writing
- Paying Jobs Related to Writing
- Ongoing Support & Community (e.g., workshops, writing groups, retreats)
- Literary Culture & Citizenship
Some Questions to Consider
Sustaining a Writing Life
- What are my two-year (MFA program) goals? What are my five-year goals as a writer? What are my long-term goals? What do I want my obituary to say about me as a writer?
- What do I want my writing schedule to be? How do I create a writing schedule to help me reach my goals as a writer? How much time is reasonable and ambitious given my life situation? How do I build in ways to keep myself accountable, avoid distractions, and not let myself off the hook?
- How will I use workshops in the program to help me achieve my goals? What kind of support or community do I want to have after the MFA program?
- What kind of reading will help me become a better reader? What research do I need to do to complete the projects I have in mind? How do I balance this sort of background work with writing time?
- What specific projects do I want to complete—and what’s the timeframe for each? What smaller projects can I complete in the next few months? What big projects do I have in mind for the long term?
The Business Aspect of the Writing Life
- How do I decide when to submit something for publication? What’s my strategy for giving my work the best chance at the sort of publication I want?
- How do I want to present myself as a writer in the world? Which social media do I want to use as a writer? When do I need a website? How do I connect with a future audience for my work?
- What questions do I have about the business side of writing? How do I learn enough to know what questions I should be asking? Where do I find answers to practical questions about how the business side of writing works?
- Do I want or expect to be paid for My writing? Do I expect to publish without getting paid or getting paid much? How do I want to think about the relationships among writing, work, job, and career?
Fostering Literary Culture
- What aspects of literary culture do I already engage with? What aspects of literary culture appeal to me most?
- What small things can I do as a writer to foster reading and reading in the larger world?
- What kinds of volunteer opportunities with literary organizations would appeal to me most? How might this work fit into my schedule and support my goals for my own writing life?
- What kinds of books would I consider reviewing to encourage reading and also fuel my own writing?
Some Formats to Consider
The format should encourage implementation and tracking so that it’s useful for the individual writer in meaningful ways over time. As a course assignment, the format should allow for presenting to the class and/or submitting to the instructor.
- Word or Google doc
- PowerPoint
- Private Blog (just use the private setting so that only those with a link can access)
- Scalar (like this OER textbook)
- Video Recording
- Index Cards, Flash Cards, or Deck of Cards
- Planner Notebook with table of contents pages
- Visual Map
- Board Game
- Cookbook
Go to Table of Contents page