kristaphillips Writer Friend Kaye posted her recap of 2008 writing goals and accomplishments on her blog today, and it got me thinking of goals.
Last year, I had NO writing goals. I’d just finished my first book, I had NO idea what I was doing, I was in the middle of a major work crisis and had no time to think about what to do with my writing.
This year, I’m still busy, but I’ve learned so much over the last year that I’m finally ready to put my goals on paper for next year.
Erch. Problem.
Goals scare me. Okay, maybe not scare me, but they are HARD! I have to have goals at work every year that I want to accomplish, and I’m always fearful of not doing so. Inevitably something always comes up on interfere and then I feel like a failure for not meeting them. Very irritating!
As a rule, I like my goals to be ‘reasonable’ or attainable. I want them to be within my grasp so I can easily meet them and beat them. But at the same point, shouldn’t we be shooting for the moon, reaching for the stars? If we set a low goal, are we destined to only achieve mediocrity?
So my question for today in preparation for “New Year Resolutions” or “Annual Writing Goals” is: How do you go about setting goals for yourself? Do you set a ‘pie in the sky’ goal or do you set small reasonable goals? Or do you do both?
On New Year’s Eve, I’ll be posting MY 2009 goals. I’d love to hear opinions to help me in my goal making!!
Goals. Ahhh, that’s a tough one. I sit down and think of at least one thing I can do quarterly. Like, within the first 3 months of 2009 I want to buy a domain for a website. But that’s it. I don’t want to get it all done and set up and functioning yet…..so, I tend to start small, then work up to the bigger end goal.
I pray a lot about it and sit with my hubby to write them out. I like to throw a big whopper in there too, along with the little ones….But most are smaller, attainable goals.
Then, I tell my accountability group…so they can hold me accountable 🙂
My only firm goal is “get published.” At the time of my making that goal I had no idea what would be involved in that.
I have not yet set any firm goals that are smaller than that- just things like “write more” and “edit more” and “learn better craft.”
Pretty fluid. I should probably think about making some attainable, smaller goals… 🙂
Hmmm, I think I actually have a good idea thanks to your comments! I post that tonight maybe… *grin*
For me, goal-setting comes about after figuring out exactly what in my life is under my control—such as setting daily word-count goals or goals for what I would read during the year.
Of course there are some goals (such as “Sell such-and-such manuscript by the end of the year”) that depend greatly on others as well—but if I don’t get it to the point where it’s ready to sell and do whatever I can to try to sell it (submitting it, pitching to editors at a conference), I will definitely never reach that goal.