Forum / Setting Writing Goals for the New Year

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    Julie Innis
    Dec 31, 12:19pm

    I posted this over at Matchbook, but wanted to check in w/ the larger F'naut community as well. I’m wondering if anyone plans to set writing goals for the year ahead? If so, how do you determine your goals, based on what factors, any carrots or sticks? Up until now, my only goal has been to write every day, but I do have a certain fondness for list-making, resolution-stating, etc. and so an expanded set of specific writing goals might be in order for 2010. I am, however, a bit lost as to where to begin and how to proceed in a reasonable, "do-able" fashion. Thoughts/advice/sage wisdom??

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    Dan Tricarico
    Jan 02, 12:48am

    Hi,

    I've been neglecting the third draft of my young adult novel; the one that might, quite possibly, make it good enough for me to feel comfortable querying agents. I teach high school, and my goal is to finally do that third draft before Spring Break. So my method, it seems, is to choose a specific, self-contained project and some kind of deadline. During my Winter Break (that ends in three days), I had a much more nebulous goal. On my Winter Break "to-do" list, I just wrote "Write something." I was hoping for a piece of flash fiction, but I'll take the six or seven poems I ended up with. Only two of which will ever make it out of the notebook and into some kind of submission situation. But let me wish everyone good luck on their writing goals in 2010. Keep at it.

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    DonJuan Writer
    Jan 02, 02:57am

    I am charging into the new year with a film script. I live in Sweden and at the end of January, it is the Göteborg International Film Festival... The idea is to venture there with First Draft printed out.
    Plus, the year ahead in SL wil be focused on poetry/performance so certainly require to be "on" with regards to writing for the year ahead

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    Jennifer L. Lopez
    Jan 02, 06:52pm

    I'm a fan of the vague goal, i.e. "I want to be published....someday." haha.

    But Julie, if you want to set specific goals for yourself, it's probably good to start with a specific project, or some end result that you know you want. Do you want to submit to some prestigious contest? Do you want to finish (or start) a manuscript? Polish up a manuscript you already have and start querying agents? If you have something specific like that, break it down into smaller steps and a workable timeline. Maybe reward yourself with a new book or something fun if you meet your deadline.

    Don't have any concrete goals? Maybe instead of "write every day" you can set a word-count goal for every day/week/month. Or how about breaking out of your comfort zone and writing in new forms or genres? Get a couple books of writing prompts and exercizes and have a goal of completing a certain number of prompts each month.

    Hey, this is fun advice! I probably won't do any of it myself, but no reason you shouldn't. :-)

    First, there's one goal I have to complete before I'll be able to focus on writing as much as I want to: "Quit Job" haha. We'll see how that goes.

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