Clifton Strengths for Writers

For this blog post, I'd like to give a shoutout to Becca Syme who runs the Write Better Faster community. I took her intro class, and it was so cool. I got a chance to look at how my personality traits impacted my own writing. From the perspective of personality traits, now I'm able to come up with writing goals for myself that go with my wiring. It's about finding the right goals for yourself, not just going with what works for other people.

I learned that routine is best for me. I am high Achiever and high Discipline, so I like having word count goals and I like getting up every morning to do my writing. It's the way I work best. Others may work best not writing consistently. Everyone is different, and no modality is superior over another.

I also learned that I have both introvert and extrovert in me when it comes to my writing. While I need to work alone in a quiet environment in order to do my best work (that goes with introvert personalities), I also value talking my plots out loud in order to really comprehend them (that's an extrovert personality).

I'm also high in Feeling, which means I often go with he flow of things as I write. I think less about logic and if things make sense and more about the emotion and the characters in my stories. This is why my revisions take so long, as there's a lot of things I don't catch when I'm going with my heart instead of my head sometimes. I think it's a good thing and also a source of knowledge that can help me improve.

I found out I'm high in intuitive personality as well. In the context of writing, this means that I am a big picture thinker. I work best when I'm thinking of the bigger picture rather than focusing on so many details. It makes sense, as I don't do a ton of world-building and I mainly write YA romance which is a genre that doesn't require extensive details and description; it's a genre where readers don't want that. So, it makes sense. It helped learning this about myself though because now I know that when I'm plotting to not try to waste my time working out every little thing, and instead focus on the bigger picture, as that's what's going to work for me in the long run. This can be applied to me simply coming up with writing goals too. I know that instead of focusing on exactly how many words I want my books to be, I should focus on the bigger picture of just getting them done. I don't need to plan out all the specifics but just have a general idea of where I want to be.

I also was big in Includer, which I personally feel like is represented in my writing. My biggest thing about my writing is I want to be inclusive of all kinds of different cultures and different ways of life, different identities, races, sexualities, etc. It means a lot to me to make the market more inclusive in general, so I was glad to get that strength.

I also found out I was super organized, which if you saw my planner, you would totally agree. I have to have everything planned ahead of time. I plan out my short and long term goals and try my best to follow them daily. With my writing, I write for two hours every morning, excluding Saturday. Having that plan is what ensures I get my work done.

I just wanted to share all that I learned so that any fellow writers can seek out the class if they are interested. Look up Write Better Faster or Becca Syme. It's totally worth it. I have a coaching class coming up too to put it all together. It gives you a fresh, new perspective, and it was awesome to take the class going into the new school year!