SMART goals should be achievable, but what does that really mean? This post is about making more ambitious goals and pursuing them with self-compassion.

Image © 2026 by Ann Cooper

This is the first post in a series on making the most of writing advice without getting overwhelmed. We’re starting with two principles for putting writing advice into perspective: consider the source and remember that everyone’s process is different.

Image: Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Dora Greenwell, and Dalziel Brothers, Young woman leaning against a wall reading a book as snowflakes fall, wood engraving by Dalziel Brothers, 1863, after E. Burne-Jones, Wellcome Collection, https://jstor.org/stable/community.24885859.

What’s more satisfying than a list? A list of lists! What’s more fun than a list of lists? A list of lists of writing rules!

Image: Hermann Rorschach, Rorschach Inkblot Test, Bern Switzerland, 1942, Science Museum Group Collection, Open: Science Museum Group, Artstor, https://jstor.org/stable/community.38358143.

Welcome, and thanks for being here! This is a burst of firsts: first blog post, first website, first time seriously trying to launch my own business. My goal with this blog is to collect useful resources for writers and talk about what I'm writing and my experience of the writing process.

Image: William Henry Fox Talbot, Winter Trees Reflected in a Pond, 1841–42, photograph, The Cleveland Museum of Art, https://jstor.org/stable/community.24624786. ‍