Writing Goals

Is it just me or are there lots of budding writers out there who find it hard to get started with their writing? I'm fine once I get going but it's the getting going that's the impossible bit. I've tired lots of different strategies including:

• Getting up early to write first thing in the morning. This is a good one, but it does make me extremely grumpy and it gets much harder as the colder and darker mornings arrive.
•  Staying up late to write in the evenings. See point 1 above - sleep deprivation and me do not go together.
• Bribes that mainly revolve around food. This is not the best strategy if you still want to fit into your jeans.
• Setting writing goals such as words per day or hours per day.
• Publishing my progress on Facebook. The shame factor comes into play here.
• Promising chapters of my book to people who've told me they'd like to read it
• Setting deadlines big and small.
• Writing at home alone. Fine, but it's easy to get distracted and end up doing the washing or playing with the cat.
• Writing in an office. Again fine, but it's easy to get distracted and do other work projects.
• Writing in a cafe or place where there are other people around. Depends on how noisy or busy it gets. It's easy to get distracted listening to the conversations of others or perhaps that's just me?
• Buying a new journal. This has really gotten out of hand. I now have a box that contains at least 37 journals. Is this too many?
• Buying a new pen. Let's not even go there with how many pens I own. Pen obsession - me??
• Reading books on how to write a novel. Can be helpful but as my husband says - stop reading and start writing.
• Listening to music. I tend to listen to scandinavian chill - that way I have no idea what's being said and it washes over me.
• Working in silence.
• Uisng a notebook. See point on journals above.
• Using a laptop.
• Using an Ipad.
• Writing with a pencil.
• Picturing the cover of my book.
• Visualising the day my book arrives from the publisher.
• Thinking about who I will invite to my book launch.
• Visualising my book in the window of Waterstones.

And so it goes on and on. I think you get the picture.At the end of the day, it seems the success factor is just to keep going, keep at it and keep putting down the next word and the next word and the next word.

I'll keep going with my strategies just in case one of them turns out to be the winning one. At the moment I've decided that I will finish my novel by the end of this year. (That's 2012 - just so you can have a go at me when I'm writing about this again in 2013).

Do you have any writing strategies you'd like to share? If so please add them to the comments. I'd love to hear from you.