Tag Archives: personal goals

Writing Life

When it’s hard to write: writing versus having written

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Hey, there, Friday. I almost forgot: it’s time to check in on our goals.

Still sucking it up over here.

When I made out a production calendar in December, I tried to set my goals at an achievable level. For me, that was a fairly high goal, but it’s a number that’s far less than my peak. The number would have had me sitting on an 18,000 word novella draft at the end of December and 38,000 words of another novel at the end of January.

Reality: 3257 words in December. 26,544 in January.

That does mean that I finished at just over 19,000 words on that novella this month! Hooray!

But it also means that I started February with less than 11,000 words on my next project. That novel is the sequel to a book I began almost one year ago. From that distance, writing that first book looks so easy. I’m sure I could dig out my progress spreadsheet and see how many words I knocked out a day—probably typically 4000+.

Now I’m struggling and usually failing to make half that.

Granted, there are a few other stresses in my personal life these days, but still—it’s doubly discouraging to revisit a character and a voice that seems like it was so. much. easier the first time.

Maybe it was. Maybe that book is magic that will never be recaptured (my persistent fear!). Maybe I’m a failure and I’ll never write a good word again.

I kind of doubt that. Even if I’m not totally feeling this book like I was the first one (or like I think I was!), it’s not the end of the world to struggle with a book. I might end up setting it aside for a while, devoting time to more research and reading, or editing that novella, or other projects. I might even end up setting it aside forever.

But the fact remains that it’s always easier to have written than to write. I have written the first book, no matter how hard or easy that process actually was at the time. I am writing a sequel—and that’s a heck of a lot harder than admiring the polished first manuscript on my hard drive.

And here’s the reality of writing that first novel, as recounted in accountability emails (emphasis added):

[WEEK 1, DAY 2] I’m having a hard time hitting my word count goals because I keep getting bogged down in research, but at least I’m trying to ignore the TV more. Hooray!

[WEEK 2, DAY 1] I was a little short over the weekend, with traveling to visit family (and I already cut my goal back by 75% :\ ), but I’m hoping to make up for it this week.

[WEEK 2, DAY 4] Oy. Anybody else getting tired? I know I am. And I seriously can’t win when it comes to getting sleep: either I stay up late pushing through to hit my goals, or I hit my stride and push back bedtime even later. Oy again.

[WEEK 3, DAY 2, 5PM] It’s been a while since we’ve had a good check in, and I’m struggling a little personally. I have a lot of other stuff coming up, today especially, and right now I’m down 2500 words from where I’d like to be by the end of the day (some from yesterday, some from today).

[WEEK 3, DAY 4] It’s been a tough week for me. I’ve had a bunch of other writing-related commitments crop up: critique group, business stuff. Plus, I’ve come to a very sticky part of my story: I know what happens after this, but I’m having a really hard time getting from here to there. I finally started making a little progress last night, but by midnight, I was too tired to keep my eyes open (thank you, head cold). Then, when I went to make the final file save of the night, my computer did something weird and Word just sat there thinking about saving the file until I finally had to give up and go to bed. I didn’t know if I would have any of my hard-won new words left. I have missed my goal every day this week, for a combined shortfall of an entire day.

There are actually lots of positive emails, too, since I did do a pretty dang good job of staying on my word counts before that (sigh), and I wrote those last 13,000 words in the last 3 days of the month. Obviously I can’t bank on another marathon like that right now (sigh) (sigh), but I’m really glad I have the record of struggling through that “magic” book (not to mention the fresh memory of how tough my last book was to write!).

What do you think? Do you ever forget how tough writing can be? How are your goals coming this year? Come share!

Photo credits: resolutions & goals—Ed Donahue; frustrated at computer—Andrew Catellier

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News & Contests

Predicting the future: plans for 2013!

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Happy New Year! I hope your holiday was fantastic, and didn’t involve, I don’t know, your first trip to the ER in 25 years or something like that (yay! Pleurisy!). I love a fresh beginning (and a clear bill of health 🙂 ), but I don’t particularly feel inclined to make New Year’s Resolutions (basically ever). However, I do have big plans for this year.

Over the last year and a half, I’ve really become devoted to scheduling to help achieve my goals easily, and this year is no different.

2013 fireworks

Blog schedule in 2013!

Last year, I created a blog schedule with themed days, which I sometimes even stuck to. Each month, I’d write out post ideas for each of those days. This made blogging pretty easy! So I’ll try to continue that pattern this year, but I’m changing up my days a bit. In 2013, we’ll look at:

  • Mondays: ups & downs of the writing life
  • Tuesdays: the Neverending TBR pile
  • Wednesdays: Writing craft
  • Thursdays: TBA
  • Fridays: all kinds of fun

I’ll also be working on several writing guide PDFs this year, including last year’s marketing series, and updating some of the older PDFs throughout the year.

Writing in 2013

Naturally, I’ve got big plans in writing, too. I actually made up a day-by-day production schedule last month—leaving the end of the year a little open, but still. Kinda scary, huh?

If I can keep up with my schedule, I’ll finish two new books and a short novella this year. Unfortunately, I’m already behind in my schedule (I really hope this isn’t indicative of the future!), so I’ll probably be playing catch up a bit this month—but I’ll writing that novella and starting on one of my novels. My production schedule also takes into account lots of editing and critiquing—but I actually tried not to push myself too hard.

Writing slower

Yes, shockingly, one of my goals for 2013 is to write slower.

I wrote two new novels in 2012, in a combined total of less than six weeks. I kind of love letting my fictional worlds consume me, and I found that writing so much, so quickly had some definite advantages in quality (no, really!)—but also some distinct drawbacks.

To put it bluntly, writing isn’t my only—or even my most important—responsibility. I’ve got three small children, and I’m not going to plant them in front of the TV forever. So one of my most important goals this year is to be more careful about my writing time. I’ll still shoot for a decent amount of words when I’m drafting, but it’s less than half of my 2012 daily drafting goal. I really don’t want to spend more than ~4 hours a day on my work, and most or all of that while my kids are at (pre)school or asleep.

I absolutely believe you have to guard your work time—but novels aren’t the only things I’m working on right now, and I’m pretty sure my fictional characters can wait much better than the real characters who awe weawwy, weawwy hungwy!

What do you think? What do you hope to achieve in 2013? Come join the conversation!

Photo by Kotomi Yamamura

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Technique, Works

How did you do in 2009?

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I didn’t set a ton of goals (or resolutions) last year (they’re on my personal blog, if you’d like to see all of them). In writing, here’s what I wanted to accomplish in 2009:

Write tons a reasonable amount. I’m nearing completion on the first draft of my latest manuscript . . . . I’d like to get through the first draft of two more this year—and finish those accursed, beautiful revisions on last year’s two manuscripts.

I did most of that. I finished the MS in question and drafted two more. I revised and polished that first MS (and I’m getting ready to do it again). I didn’t go back to the first MS of 2007; if I ever do, it will require heavy re-conceptualizing.

I’m not sure, however, that three manuscripts in a year is “a reasonable amount.” I know it depends on how fast you write and how much time you “make” to write (and especially on whether or not you have an idea that sets you on fire)—but when you’re the primary caregiver to your two young children 24/7, that’s a lot. And creatively speaking, it’s a lot, too—at times, enough to burn me out.

And yet the only goals I’ve even begun to consider for the coming year are almost the same—repolish and rerevise the same MS and continue the submission rounds with it, draft two more manuscripts, and polish one of those. (This may be subject to change, of course; I may end up going back to one of the MS from last year to polish first. Who knows?)

Beyond that, I haven’t really thought about goals in most areas. I know I want to work on increasing the tension in the first half of that manuscript and look at the techniques required to do that. I’m also thinking of doing a series on tension, suspense and foreshadowing.

What do you want to accomplish and learn in 2010? Any requests for writing series?

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