Goal setting

In 2013, Chicago-based entrepreneur and visual artist Craighton Berman launched The Campaign for the Accurate Measurement of Creativity, a witty project involving Berman designing and selling a jar to collect pencil sharpenings in order help people ‘quantify’ their creativity.

The mystical writers’ muse: that which calls to the creative genius, enthralling and enrapturing them until their work of sublime greatness is complete. I don’t believe a word of it. The writers’ muse is a piece of romantic fiction. The concept – which still drives much of our understanding of ‘creativity’ today – is out-dated, regressive and unhelpful. It gets in the way of people actually being creative and needs to be debunked. Here’s why.

Many people harbour dreams to become best selling novelists, film directors, sculptors or artists. But what’s the difference between the dreamers and the do-ers?

Advice on writing productivity often focuses on scheduling time to write. But having an unpredictable day doesn’t mean you should give up writing. Embrace the chaos and learn to write spontaneously.

You’ve chosen your outfit for the Oscar ceremony and practised your smile for the waiting cameras but you still haven’t written the first scene of your screenplay let alone made a film. Don’t give up on your fantasy – here’s how to use your dreams to set achievable goals.

Writing can be a lonely business when you’re holed up in the attic hammering out your masterpiece. It’s easy to lose perspective if you’re stuck in the third rewrite of your third act. This is where ‘beta readers’ come into their own – trusted advisors who can offer feedback to help you navigate the plot ahead. We spoke to both sides of a critiquing partnership to find out how their reading and writing relationship keeps them motivated and on track.

The poet James Dickey felt huge relief when he left what he called the “dark satanic mills of American business” to concentrate on his writing full time. But most of us don’t have the luxury of giving up the day job, so what’s the best way to balance working with writing?

After years of dreaming and months of tweaking on Friday 12 September 2014 Write-Track was unveiled for beta testing. We emailed the patient writerly types on our launch list and kept our fingers tightly crossed. Here are a few snippets of how the first week went – it involved missing robots, some superstar goal-achieving writers - and the occasional vortex.

The increase in smart phone usage has led to an explosion in self-monitoring. But what exactly is tracking and can it help writers?

You want to write but your life is crammed full of important and urgent things to do – plus a bunch of tedious and mundane tasks. Here are a few pointers to find time in your schedule and commit to your writing.