My Five Year Goals:
1. Finish the Sons of Jacob poem series.
2. Build up this blog til it's popular like Mike Duran's.
3. Finish 3 novels.
Setting goals. It's kind of like being a kid at
Each goal comes with its own built-in price, and this differs from writer to writer. For example, some writers, unlike me, didn't learn spelling and English grammar in their school, and so part of their price is to go back and study these things so they can write well-crafted or at least correctly spelled and understandable English sentences.
A novel-writing goal always comes with a reading 'price'. You need to be well-read in your genre--- the classics of the genre, older genre works, and today's newest offerings. You don't HAVE to follow the latest trends in a genre, but you DO need to know what these trends are to work within the genre with confidence. (You might find your writing ideas place you in an emerging subgenre. Or maybe you will start a whole new subgenre.) So perhaps we all need to include 'read 3 novels a month in my genre(s).' Not to mention outside-of-genre and nonfiction reading. (Note to mainstream and literary fiction writers: those are 'genres', too. At least as far as the reading requirement goes.)
Sometimes the 'price' means overcoming problems of disorganization, as in the case of a person with AD/HD. I have Asperger Syndrome, which comes with 'executive function deficit'. Which essentially means AD/HD. So you may need to search out organizing tips for AD/HD people to find organizational ways that work for YOU.
You may need to overcome psychological issues. I have a sort of chronic writer's block which when it hits makes it next to impossible to work any further on the current WIP, or even on any writing. I am currently reading a number of books which help writers with these issues.
Self-confidence is a major problem for writers. Your 'price' likely will include working on this. I can recommend 'Write for your Life' by Lawrence Block as a help with that. (It's a bit new-agey, but the affirmations technique is also recommended by Christian pastor Norman Vincent Peale in 'The Power of Positive Thinking'.)
So as you look over your goals, think: are you willing to pay the price? What will that price be? What steps can you take to pay it?
My goals update:
1. Have written 2 of the poems and taken notes on the third.
2. Am working on posting on this blog and commenting on other blogs more regularly.
3. Planning to participate in NaNoWriMo with a cross-genre novel (Jane Eyre inspired Gothic with a sci-fi setting) that doesn't seem as complex as my previous, unfinished NaNo novels. Currently at work writing an outline of a favorite Gothic novel that will serve as a model for my own novel's outline. Writing starts Nov. 1. My NaNo page: http://nanowrimo.org/participants/ilsabein
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I agree with you that each goal has its price, although for me it's more to do with the time commitment required to get things done.
ReplyDeleteI loved readingyour update and I also believe those goals and commitment to them is vital. To many time we create goals but are not willing to invest what is needed.
ReplyDeleteWendy
Some good ambitions there. I'm doing the Five Year Project too - I just want to finish and publish one novel. You are right about paying a price - I have had to give up writing short stories and cut down my time on Twitter and have almost stopped playing Candy Crush ;)
ReplyDelete