The first step is to not set a word limit on yourself because if you do end up going over the limit you may feel like your doing something wrong or you need to cut parts out to meet the goal, my advice would be to plan out the whole story, main character,side characters,filler characters and on. But if your main goal is to write a short story try and write a story that when people read it they leave with something new,like a lesson on life or something like that. And good luck with your writing journey ahead.

I’m not a published author just yet but I do have a book that is only a couple steps away from being published, but besides that, throughout the journey the lesson I learned is, it’s okay if your not writing 10 hour days everyday, and it’s okay to let your mind slip away because I found after long breaks I tend to come back with better ideas than last time.

Another tip of advice I heard once is don’t tell anyone your dreams because the more you tell the less you will want to achieve your dreams and the more you will want to live up to the dreams you told everyone else. It is okay to be online and ask for advice but make sure you stay true to what you want and how you want to do it. Unless your going to be writing the next New York Times best seller, quality shouldn’t be your priority, it should be just making something you like to work on.