DEVELOPING WRITER GOALS

So, it's July 1. The year 2013 is half way over. Today would be a good day to pull out that list of personal writing goals for the year and see what you have actually accomplished. What? No list of goals. No plan for success. Don't despair! Think of today as the first day of a new year.

 

Image courtesy of [digitalart] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

GOAL 1: Continue to develop my platform. I established an about.me presence. Karna Tecla @ about.me I opened a Facebook page. Karna Tecla author  Check these out.

GOAL 2: Revise - majorly revise the novel I am working on. I finished what I thought was a first draft of a novel and pitched it to two editors at a writer's conference, but during several workshops I realized that what I thought was a good edition still needs major work.

GOAL 3: Draft the outline and characters for a novel to write during National Novel Writing Month. Then, write the bare bones of the story. I like NaNoWriMo. It forces me to focus on one project for the month.

GOAL 4: Keep a detailed journal of family life. My mother was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer June 13. We have been writing down family stories and family history, but it now so much more important to get down.

GOAL 5: Write every day. Whether it is for a current project or for something else. I need to put butt in chair and words on the page.

GOAL 6: READ. Good writers read. I need to get back to my nightly reading.

What is it you would like to accomplish in the next six months?

WRITER GOALS

Happy New Year.

If you are like me, the newsletters you get in your email's inbox are focusing on setting goals for 2013. Have you thought about what goals you will set as a writer for this new year?

• Join a local writer's group
• Submit a short story to a contest or publication
• Submit a poem to a contest or publication
• Attend a writer's conference
• or just simply write every day for a length of time or a specific number of words

I like goals because they can be adapted as I become successful. As a writer, I have the following goals for the new year:

• Finish revising my NaNo novel and then edit it 
• Send the polished manuscript to the NaNo publishing bonus
• Write submissions for each of the contests that are held by the writing groups I belong to
• Keep up with the Novel 101 assignments from Writing.com
• Write at least 2,000 words daily
• Attend the UW Madison Annual Writers' Institute
• Submit at least one polished pieces (poem, short story, non-fiction piece)
• Post regularly on each of my blogs

If you have some goals for the new year, please share them.

THINK, WRITE, TELL

Somewhere, recently, I read that if you have set some goals and just kept them to yourself without writing them down or telling them to others, your goal will probably wither and dry.

I've had to think about this for a while. I have always been the type of person who would set goals, but not write them down or say a word to others about them. That way, no one could call me on it. I thought it was a way to save face.

Writing down my goals sounded like a way to own those goals I was out to acomplish, but they tended to become easily covered. On a notecard on my desk? Covered with other papers and books. In a writer's journal? Turn a page and the goal is easily forgotten. On the bulletin board in front of my desk? Covered with other things that needed to go on the bulletin board. The same for my Toshiba bulletin board.

During a writing workshop last year, we were given a sheet of paper and told to put out name and the word "writer" on it. A full sheet of 8 1/2 X 11 sheet of paper. Most of us put our name and the word in the upper right or left corner of the paper, like we were taught in school. Our instructor chuckled and commended the single individual who wrote her name and the word in the center of the paper in large print. "Do you really think so little of your self as a writer?" she asked the rest of us. She challenged us to go out into the world and tell everyone "I am a writer." So I did.

But I continued to keep my goals to myself until I read that email or newsletter.

It was the end of October and I had been planning once again to participate in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). For those of you who haven't heard, the challenge is to write a 50,000+ word novel in the 30 days that comprise the month of November. Usually, the only person I confided in was my hubby, but this year I decided to tell more people: anyone really who would listen. An amazing thing happened. The more people I told, the more I felt compelled to finish those 50,000 words.

As I look upon the experience, I think that setting goals must be three fold: set your goals and determine what it will take to accomplish the goal, then write it down, AND FINALLY, share your goals with anyone who will listen. 

So, since I can't verbally talk to you, here are at least two of my goals: 1) Post a new "Sunday Edition" story every Sunday, and 2) Post regularly on this blog and my other blogs.

I've said it and published it. Now, to make good on my word.

SUMMER GOALS

The end is in sight. I can actually see summer. Today was the last day of teaching for the 2011-2012 school year, and it has been a long grueling stretch. Now we're in the the final exam stretch.

As I look ahead to next week when I will no longer have the structure of the "daily grind" so to speak, I realize that I can not go through another summer without created structure. I did that last summer (Although I did take several classes and workshops) and it got me no where. Last summer and this school year, however, did teach me the value of schedules and goals. Yes, one would think that at my age I should already know that. Not so. While my children were young and living at home, I lived their schedule of scouting, sports, YMCA day camps, and activities at our local community college. When they had graduated, I taught summer school for a few years. Again, a summer scheduled by someone else. So last summer with no one telling where I had to be or what needed to be done, I floated through the summer and by August I had nothing to show for my "summer off."

In beginning the transition from a teaching career to a writing career, I have been reading numerous articles and blogs that talk about setting goals and schedules. As a night owl, I have been working to set limits on the time I go to bed so that I can rise and get things done.

What to get done?
1. Get the first draft of my first novel completely finished
2. Develop a schedule and keep to it for blogging
3. Organize all of the miscellaneous things I have written
4. Develop a method of recording what I send out and to whom and with what result
5. Reading for myself (I've been doing good at this in the evening before bed)
6. Reading and preparing for the next school year (each English level has a new anthology for next year and I have two levels and very few pieces carry over)
7. Learning to eat healthy and get exercise
8. Gardening in Northern Illinois and getting my lawn healthy
9. Clean and clean out the stuff in my house that I no longer need, use, or want (Do I hear garage sale?)
10. Learn to carve out time to just sit and enjoy life

Wow! Is that too much between now and August 27th? Have I missed anything? I'll just have to see.

So, in the vain of getting my blogging more regular, this Sunday, look for an entry on the "Sunday Edition" page of this blog and let me know what you think.