12 Steps to Success in Writing (or anything else in life)

1. BIC (Butt in Chair). This means just sit down and get it done.
2. Don’t Make Excuses. People who make excuses tend not to accomplish much.
3. Make a Working Space. Work there on a regular basis. Don’t have fun there. It messes with the chi.
4. Find a coach. This might be virtually, but find someone who can give you advice, someone who is further along the path than you are.
5. Make Big Changes if necessary. This means throwing out hundreds of pages on occasion. It means not taking offense when someone tells you truthfully what you are doing wrong.
6. Stay True to Your Vision. (Which sounds like it contradicts #5, but doesn’t. You need to have a vision so you can keep moving forward, even if you make changes.)
7.Deal with Fear. Fear is a part of every success. You face the fear, and then you move past it.
8.Join the Real Competition. This means that if you are a writer, you send stuff out. To real editors and agents. In the athletic world, it means you have to compete with people who are a lot better than you are. You learn a lot this way.
9. Celebrate the Rejections. This may sound crazy, but you’ve got to do something to encourage yourself to keep taking chances, because that’s the only way to success.
10.Read good books. Or experience what is of the best quality in your own field. Watch good swimmers. Experience incredible art. You need something to aim for.
11. Build Community. You need people to compare yourself against, to encourage you, to make you see what is realistic in terms of time frame. You also need human contact, no matter what you may have heard about artists in the ivory tower.
12. BIC. Because it always comes down to the work. And you doing it.