Writing: Setting and Keeping Realistic Goals

Anybody who’s been watching me on Facebook knows I’m on a mission: to build up to writing 3000 words a day, five days a week, on the my work in progress. (So this does not count blogs, website content, short stories that hit out of the blue, e-mail etc.) Some friends have told me they think this is an amazing goal, almost unbelievable, but I know it’s one I can achieve.

We all have aspirations and goals for our writing, but how do we know it’s something doable? If we set undoable goals, then we set ourselves up for frustration. Sometimes, God enables us to do the impossible, but in the day-to-day, He expects us to us to use our abilities as best we can, but realistically. So let’s talk today about setting realistic writing goals.

#1 Set a goal that depends on others. For example, you can’t set a goal of getting x number of books published unless you publish them yourself. That’s because you can’t guarantee that x number of editors will accept your stuff, that production will go according to plan, etc. You can set a goal of x submissions a week, or x stories written a year. Goals are something you accomplish on your own–with help, perhaps, but not where if someone falters, the goal does, too.

#2 What’s realistic in your field? Fantasy author Holly Lisle recently said in a newsletter that she can write 3600 words in a two-hour period. Dean Wesley Smith has 90-plus books and probably even more short stories published. Another author I read about (the go-to guy for many publishers when authors can’t/don’t fulfill their contracts) said he’s had to write entire novels in two weeks. NaNoWriMo has the goal of 50,000 words in a month–less than 3,000 words a day, but comparable in effort.

#3 Know what’s realistic for you. This is the big one.

? Do you have the skill? Even Holly Lisle said when she first started writing that she could not have written that quickly and produced a quality work. Decades of experience, instruction and practice brought her to this level. I have enough experience to know I can make my set goal. I have done it before, as well.

? Do you have the time? When I first started writing, I was homeschooling two kids, had a toddler and a baby. My goal then was a sentence a night. That’s all I could realistically achieve. Now, my kids are in public school, and I have several hours a quiet that I’ve learned to guard for my writing.

? Do you have the support? I don’t mean do you have cheerleaders. Those are nice but not necessary. I mean practical support like making your family leave you alone for an hour to write (or mostly alone.) Can you get access to the Internet to send our submissions? Can you work around obstacles? (Some folks write on lunch hours; others go to the library for a while on the way home from somewhere or even just sit in their cars and write. However, their goals will be different fro the person who has three hours of time to concentrate on writing.)

Okay, that should help you to set a realistic goal. Here are a couple of ideas for keeping it.

* Put it in writing on your schedule.
* Do it first–reward yourself with the time wasters like Facebook afterward (or after significant progress, like every 1000 words.)
* Be accountable. I post my goal and wordcount on Facebook and Twitter.
* Get buddies. I have a couple of friends I meet with online. We write and occasionally comment to each other, ask for help or post our progress. We don’t judge each other or ourselves on our goals, incidentally. We know and respect that we are at different stages.
* Reward yourself.
* If the goal proves unrealistic, revise. I may find that 3000 words a day takes too much of my quiet time, and that I’m struggling to keep up with other projects; if so, I’ll tone down, but this goal will also give me a good idea about what’s reasonable.

Last thing: Along the lines of buddies: a couple of us have been toying with the idea of meeting in the CWG chat room, mostly to touch base in the day and post writing goals, ask for help, etc. If you are interested, then comment below with your usual writing time (and time zone). If we see that there’s enough interest, we can do it.