Every year I set myself writing goals. And every year I fall short.
Some of that are things beyond my control, like family issues: cancer and death have a way of shaking things up and resetting your priorities.
Some of my failure has been a simple lack of discipline. Or should I call myself out for what it is: laziness.
Some of my tricks for staying on track work, when I use them. Like to-do lists. Or tracking how many hours I’m actually working.
But then things fall apart when family crises arise. Or when I come to a task I don’t want to do, and fritter my time away, procrastinating.
When just last week I put off writing an email I didn’t want to write. But I didn’t want to start anything else, knowing this was the most important thing I needed to accomplish.
I would have been must better served to finish my Christmas shopping. That would have least been productive.
So the lesson I learned in 2015 is any productivity is better than none. And having achieved something, not matter how small, I’m more inspired to tackle a tougher task.
This year, I’m going to set the goals again. They aren’t New Year’s resolutions, to be made and forgotten by Epiphany. Goals. Serious goals I intend to achieve. This is the year I’m not going to fall short.
So here they are:
- Finish drafting Stinging Power, #3 in my fantasy quartet
- Finish revising Raising Fear, #1 in the quartet
- Edit Raising Fear
- Publish Raising Fear
- Revise Wanting Justice, #2 in the quartet
- Edit Wanting Justice
- Blog weekly
- Track my productivity and hold myself to a serious work schedule
- Find critique partners
And just for grins…
- Participate in NaNoWriMo, even though I’ve finished my quartet and have no ideas at all for what I’d write about.
So breaking this into quarters:
January-March
- Finishing drafting Stinging Power
- Finish revising Raising Fear
- Figure out a way to track productivity and get started
- Post 13 blog posts
- Look for critique partners
April-June
- Edit Raising Fear
- Keep tracking productivity and make adjustments as needed
- Post 13 blog posts
- Look for critique partners
July-September
- Publish Raising Fear
- Revise Wanting Justice
- Outline NaNo novel
- Keep tracking productivity and make adjustments as needed
- Post 13 blog posts
- Look for critique partners
October-December
- Draft NaNo novel
- Edit Wanting Justice
- Promote Raising Fear
- Keep tracking productivity and make adjustments as needed
- Post 13 blog posts
- Look for critique partners
I’m determined that this is the year I finally get my first novel published. The only way to do is to keep trying.