Author name: Onyemechi Nwakonam

Its time for writing goals.
Last week newsletter I promised to share the framework I discovered and how you can use it too.
Scene
I am with ear phones plugged into my phone with no music playing. I am sitting in a class room with no teacher and different students muttering and reading in their different cliques.
Step-by-Step Guide to Using the 12-Week Year for Poetry and Creative Writing
The 12-Week Year (12WY) framework, popularized by Brian P. Moran, can be effectively adapted for poetry…

Happy New Month
Scene
I am on my bed typing on my phone in a dark room with only my phone screen light as the light in the room.
This week I will write an update on what I am doing so far.
It’s the last month of the year 2023.
I am doing two things .
1 .Reflecting on how my writing life has gone so far.
No matter how bad you might think writing was for this year. The fact that you still think of writing is a win. We will start from there.
Let’s learn from our experience.
Else we will repeat…

Originality of your Life Experiences
Update
I am in a restaurant typing this email after a finishing my meal.
With ai and everything out there any body is writing anything but we fail to see that if it is quick doesn’t mean it is good.
What am I left with is our true stories. I stopped journalling for a while and that had been my major way of saving my ideas and experience.
Well it is in two folds.
My Experience
As ordinary as you might think your life is ,something in the form of a story…

Sometimes I feel like I am going to explode from the worlds and stories I have imagined but I am yet to write.
I am sitting on my bed typing on my phone. It occurs to me that the more I read the more I write. Everytime my writing gets boring I need to read a book to light up my imagination.
Quotes
Other than the physical act of putting pen to paper, I can’t think of another more important job duty of the writer than to stare wistfully out a window.”
Terri Guillemets
This is how you do it: sit…

Good evening.
As I write this newsletter I am upstairs in a room made into a library by a church.
I want to take all my excuses and obstacles. Legit reasons why I can’t become the writer I imagined.
What stops me from doing the work I need to be writing.
And demystify them with actionable steps for me to deal with them.
I want you to come along on this ride. What is the “but” stopping you from writing
What is the argument the resistance uses to get you everytime you try to write.
Here’s…

This is for me and a reminder to myself. In the game of creative writing I have started ,failed and stopped writing for a long time. Only to continue again.
In this game there are no losers or winners there are only quitters and players as long as I keep playing I will win.
Writing is hard
While that might be true . It is not as hard as I make it seem. I know everytime I sit to write I am starting from scratch knowing that it might not work.
When I read the book The Alchemist by Paul Celho….

Will you be participating in Nanowrimo?
Nanowrimo might not be for you. Truth is it is not for everyone. You want to participate but not towards a novel after all the support and accountability is out there.
Before I proceed with a couple of housekeeping.
Nanowrimo is a competition held every November. Nanowrimo is short for National Novel Writing Month.
The goal is to write at least 50,000 words at the end of the month.
With this word count goal you will have to write an average of 1667…

Why did I fail my Writing Challenges?
Over the past five years I have been actively trying to be a writer. I have set goals but for some reason I did not achieve them. For some reason you would expect me to have learnt my lesson but I didn’t.
When I wrote the newsletter two weeks ago I decided to work on these projects.
100 days of Poetry
100 days of Short Story
100 days of Spoken word Poetry
90 days YouTube Challenge.
But two days in and I could not keep track of the many things I was…

The Law of 100:Setting Growth Writing Goals.
I made plans to embark on four writing challenges.
Starting on 1 October 2023.
But I quit.
Everything was overwhelming. I was losing track of so many things. I had so much I was doing I had to pause and do one thing.
Delete.
Delete all the things that were not as important.
While trying to decide I asked myself. Why was I doing the writing challenge? For me the goal is to become a better writer and establish my identity as a writer.
To me and to…