The Last Day of the Year: What Will Be Different Tomorrow?

by Keith Williamson Flickr.com

If you're like me, it's hard to believe another year is coming to an end. Good-bye, 2012; hello, 2013. You've probably spent some time thinking about your writing goals or at least what you would like to accomplish in one year's time, even if you haven't created "official" goals. Besides writing goals, you might have things you want to do in other areas of your life, too. Popular New Year's resolutions are weight loss, more exercise, organization, sleeping more, and less time watching TV--more time reading. Many of these sound familiar to you, I'm sure, and you may have had similar goals last year. If you are like most of us, you start off with a bang in January, and then sometime in February, things start to dwindle, and the goals become lost.

How can you change this in 2013? What can you do differently so this is the year you accomplish your writing goals (and personal ones, too)?

I wish I had a magic answer, or at least a magic bean. (Wait, this isn't Jack and the Beanstalk, is it?) But before you spend any more time on this post, I'll tell you I don't have magic. What I do have is an idea that I'm going to try this year, and one that I have never tried before. Maybe it will work for you.

I have created several different writing goals for 2013--from marketing my middle-grade novel, Finding My Place: One Girl's Strength at Vicksburg, to writing a new middle-grade novel, from a nonfiction book proposal to growing my freelance editing and speaking business--and the first thing I did differently was create the goals with my writing critique group, and I wrote them down on a mini-poster, using markers and stickers. I also read the goals out loud and explained each one to the members of my critique group.

But even doing this, I wasn't sure if I would remember to work on them each week, so by this time next year, I would accomplish these goals. So, I decided I am typing each goal and getting them to all fit on one 8.5" x 11" piece of paper. Then I am printing 52 of these sheets--one for each week of the year. When I turn my calendar to the new week every Monday, I will also see all of my writing goals staring at me. There will be a visual reminder (neatly typed) of each of my goals along with a small space for comments to update how I am progressing or if I have any questions I need to investigate.

I've learned that 2013 won't be any different if I just create a few writing goals only available in my mind and then try to work to accomplish them--without writing them down or sharing them. I'm going a step further this year with a weekly typed list of goals. I'll let you know how it works out. Until then. . .have a wonderful new year!

Margo L. Dill is the author of the middle-grade historical fiction novel, Finding My Place. She is also an online instructor for WOW! and is offering a free teleclass on January 8 and a children's novel writing workshop, starting on January 22. For more information, see the WOW! classroom.

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2 comments creating goals, maintaining writing goals, Margo L. Dill, New Years Resolutions

Middle of the Year Mulling

Holy moly, it’s hot!

I can barely move, much less work, in the middle of the summer. Something about extreme heat and humidity makes me want to fall into a pool and make like a baby hippo. But even baby hippos can loll about, here at the halfway point of the year, mulling over 2012 writing goals.

Maybe you’d benefit from taking a look at where you are in your goals, too. So let’s grab a cool drink and see what you’ve got.

I’m going to digress for just a minute to say that the more specific your goals are, the better you’ll be able to assess your progress. But I don’t want you sweating any more than you already are. So for the sake of our exercise, let us say you wrote down some swell, specific goals. Like “Read the following books on writing…” And then you listed four lovely titles.

Now you can check your list quickly. But oh, dear. It looks like you’ve read only one of your lovely writing books. Even with a melting brain, you can see that by the halfway mark of the year, you should have read two. Take a few minutes to mull over this disappointing fact. Okay, now you must move on from mulling to actual thinking. Ask yourself, “Why am I not on task here?”

Perhaps it’s something obvious. Like elves snuck into your house and stole every single writing book you owned except that one book cleverly stashed under your pillow. If elves snuck into your house, you’re excused. But if the reason is something less obvious, like you didn’t quite get round to it, then sorry, but you must think even more.

Is the writing goal you set necessary and/or effective in relation to what you want to accomplish?

The thing is, we make smaller goals to help us achieve bigger goals. And so taking the time to consider the pros and cons of any goal is absolutely worth it. At the beginning of the year, we have one perspective; at the halfway point, we may have a completely different perspective based on what we’ve achieved—or hope to achieve.

So, thoughtfully consider where your writing is right now, where you want to end up, and what you must do to get there by the end of 2012. And after you’ve done all that thinking (and please remember to write down the important stuff!), give yourself a pat on the back. And while you’re at it, give yourself another cool drink, one with a little umbrella in it. ‘Cause you (and even the baby hippo) have earned it!

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7 comments effective writing goals, goals, maintaining writing goals

Time to Spring Clean Your Writing!

It’s that time of year again where we clean up the clutter, get rid of all the mess and dirt collected over the winter months and re-organize. I see it as the perfect opportunity to let go of the old and bring in the new, similar to what we do at the beginning of a New Year.

At the start of another year, we try making new goals for ourselves. By this time of year, we should be checking in to see whether we’re on our way to meeting those goals or if we need to change/restructure them. It’s what I call, “Spring Cleaning My Writing”, and usually involves asking myself the following questions:

What were my long and short-term goals at the beginning of the year? The place to start is checking on what your writing goals were at the start of the year. Have any of them been crossed off? How close are you to meeting each goal? Have you started on any of your long-term goals? Doing this will give you an idea of how to, or even if, to move forward with what you’ve set.

Why did I set these goals? You might have been in a different place along your writing journey at the beginning of the year, which is why you set the goals you did. But things might have changed, either in what your focuses are or in your personal life that might have moved you on a different path. Ask yourself why you set those goals and if they still pertain to what you want to do.

What is my writing focus now? The next logical question to ask yourself is what your focus is now. Is your end goal the same now that it was then? Will the goals you’ve set get you to that end goal? Whether you want to be splashed in the pages of a top-selling glossy magazine or see the novel you’re writing on the bookshelves, make sure your focus is the same. If it’s not, then you’ll need to change a few of your goals to suit your new focus.

Do any of my old goals fit into my current focus? Just like I said above, this is the time to get rid of the dust and clear out the cobwebs. With your current focus in your vision, you now have to determine if those goals are helping or hindering your progress. Take a good look at each of your goals and decide whether to keep, clean up then keep or simply chuck out a goal.

What’s going on around me right now and in the near future? This is a step I often forget to factor in when creating my goals. You need to remember the non-writing goals you have when creating your writing ones because the two don’t always coincide. For example, my kids will all be finished school by the end of June so most of my daytime writing will be gone having them all at home. Therefore, it’s wiser for me to make a bunch of smaller goals from now until the fall when my kids go back to school so I don’t get frustrated or overwhelmed. It’s better to have a few smaller goals or baby step goals leading to a larger one than to cram too much on your pile.

At this point, I re-write my goals with the mental promise to check in with my list again for my next big clean up in the fall. Doing this helps keep me on track, organized and inspired. Of course, life isn’t always predictable and can throw a monkey wrench at us even with a solid plan in place. But doing a little Spring Cleaning in our writing is a great way to keep us moving forward.

Feel free to share your own ways to ‘clean up’ your writing and writing goals.

Happy writing!

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4 comments Chynna Laird, maintaining writing goals, Organizational Tips, setting writing goals