I’ve overcome some of that with the help of avid, healthy reading and being more conscious about my goals as a writer. No more lofty notions of the great american novel and no more insurmountable goals that end up sending me far away from the keyboard and straight to a bottle of Jameson’s. Save the dreams of world domination for later.

One of the keys to enjoying writing and keeping it up consistently is setting small, achievable goals for yourself. May not be a new idea, but I don’t see it talked about in regards to writing as often as I’d think I would.Some examples of things to try in order to bring back the love:

• Improve the dialogue in one scene. Cut out the fat and make it flow.
• Search your story for lame words like “somehow” and “suddenly.” Replace them with better specific words.
• I once pared a story down from 2500 words to 1600. Talk about trying to find the perfect word… Do this to a story you really like for even greater effect.
• If you’re stuck on a story or a piece of writing, read a favorite story and find one thing to steal. Watch the plagiarism — but freely borrow a technique and apply it to solve your problem.

The idea of attainable goals is part of writing exercises and prompts. But for me, I’ve never really been able to get much out of exercises. I need to feel like what I’m writing is the real thing — even if I throw it out eventually. And, a small goal achieved is a happy writer, even if only for a few minutes…