Winter Arc: Author Edition

Lauren Taylor
1 day ago
3 min read

Take these darker months to focus on your ambition as an author and re-emerge with a publishing plan and the dedication to make your vision a reality.

For a long time, I have dreamt of having a bookshelf full of my own books and spending my days writing and creating art to share with the world, but by winter each year, I would feel so disheartened that I wasn’t anywhere closer to my dream than the year before. I’d make the same resolutions again in January and be stuck in a cycle of passing my goals on to the next year, relishing in the hit of dopamine from creating the goals rather than getting results.

This year is different.

This year, I am doing the Winter Arc: Author Edition and not waiting for the strike at midnight to begin again. Instead, I am establishing routines, purging bad habits, and building momentum so 2026 can begin strong.

Step 1. Envision your dream career

Where are you now, where do you want to be, and your reason why.

You could be an unpublished writer with a hundred half-finished drafts in your Google docs and a bookcase full of your favourite romance novels, and you want to be a full-time author of a small town romance series and annual Christmas novels, because writing about meet-cutes and declarations of love brings you joy as a hopeless romantic and your brain is bursting with ideas for first dates, first fall-outs, and first ‘I love you’s.

Step 2. Set goals to get there

Turn your dreams into reality by creating your ultimate career goals, like becoming a full-time author or a New York Times bestseller, and break these down into actionable steps and annual milestones for guidance.

Keeping to the romance author analogy, your career goals could include:

1. Writing a small town series to release one book a year

2. Getting a literary agent

3. Reaching a full-time, consistent income

To achieve goal one, you could learn story structure and romance beats, and dedicate 30 minutes a day to writing, with a deadline in 3 months time for the first draft.

For goal two, research literary agents, attend a query letter workshop, and track your journey through the query trenches.

For goal three, establish routines to consistently produce new stories, monitor your income and expenses, and invest in the Ultimate Book Launch Planner to maximise the impact of each launch with intentional planning and marketing ideas.

Step 3. Keep track of your progress

When you don’t document your journey, you can often feel like you’ve achieved nothing. It isn’t until you look back and see all of those check-marks, all those deadlines hit, and all those words written, that you realise you’ve done more than you thought. Keeping track also helps you see the next steps and how far you’ve come.

The Book Progress Tracker contains each stage from writing to editing to publishing, with a row for each book you write, and space for dates (deadlines or completion dates - it’s up to you) so you know exactly where you are.

Make Winter work for you this year.

Get started with the right tools: