Do you have a vision for your writing career? Where would you like to be 1, 3, 5, and especially 10 years down the road with your writing career? A vision is not only a hope for your writing career but an aspiration of what we plan to achieve in the long-term. Then you could you plan to accomplish. A vision statement usually tells us what decide which of these goals to pursue in the shorter term. In order for your vision statement to be most effective to inspire you to be your best, your vision must be measurable and achievable. So, don’t create a vision statement such as: I want to become a New York Bestseller in five to ten years. Instead, say, I want to write five books in 5 years or 10 books in 10 years. This goal is much more concrete and it will allow you to measure the progress of your vision statement as time passes. This is crucial to your success as a writer. You can only become an excellent and inspired writer if you know where you are headed and what your writing goals are. In other words, you have to define what an excellent writer is for you. Writers who have a vision for their writing career, and keep evaluating every year how they are doing, are the best and most excellent writers. Not only that, but they have self-confidence and they are successful. The Specifics of a Vision Statement A vision statement is usually something that we prepare for ourselves to become aware of our hopes and aspirations for our writing career. It is great to dream of what you would like to achieve. But eventually, we have to put these dreams into reality for us to become excellent writers. A vision statement should be concrete so that it is grounded in reality. The beauty of a vision statement is that it allows you to dream and then to assess the likelihood that you will achieve your vision within the time frame proposed. If your goals are based on impossible goals that you have no control over, such as I want to become a New York Best Seller, then you won’t be successful and very frustrated because that is not in our control. So, your vision statement should be based on your values and beliefs as well as your purposes as a writer. So, a good vision statement should have the following headings: • What is the purpose of my writing? Is it to teach, guide, inspire or all of the above? • What genre or type of writing do I want to do? Fiction or Nonfiction? • What audience do I want to reach? Adult, geriatric, young adult, middle grade, or kids. • How many hours can you devote to your writing? • Do you consider yourself to be a writer? Is it part of your identity? • How many books would you like to have published and written in 3 and 5 years? By asking yourself these questions, you will be determining your vision as a writer. And you will be at your best if you work from your vision statement to more concrete goals for yourself as a writer. Excellence is derived from dreaming where you want to be in your writing career a few years from now. Confidence is built by ensuring that every day you bring yourself closer to your goals. Further, the quality of your writing can be developed by having a vision and consistently bring it about.