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How to Stay Abreast of Your Writing Goals

writing in the journal

The beginning of the year is a great time to set new goals, or cut and paste last year’s goals onto the “new” list. I mean, that’s how it works sometimes, right? We all have good intentions come January 1st, but there are always certain goals that get pushed around but never accomplished. I’m tired of moving the same goal around into list after list, feeling the weight of it push down on my shoulders and smother my muse. So, this year, I have a different plan. I’m still setting goals, but I’m approaching them in a new way.

1. Make sure goals are reasonable and measurable.

Sarah Callender wrote a wonderful post on Write It Sideways about the difference between Dreamers and Goalers, saying writers must be a little of both:

A dream is shiny and pretty and probably quite heavy. Like a coconut cream pie. Or an ocean at sunset. Dreams sit on our shoulder and whisper things like, But what about me? Don’t forget about me! . . . But if you dream of getting published in a prestigious publication, in any publication at all, then create a SMART goal, something over which you have total control.

Writing a novel is my dream. One goal I set in the past to help me reach that dream was to get the draft ready for Beta readers. By March. Okay, June. Um…by the end of the year, dammit. My original goal wasn’t specific enough. Now, I know that I need to break down the idea of finishing the draft into more reasonable, bit-size chunks, like “write the next chapter by the end of the week.”

And speaking of weeks….

2. Use whatever tools you can find to organize weekly goals.

I read about Jane Friedman’s weekly goal sheets long before I started using them, but since I’ve been filling them out, my brain feels more in tune with where my heart wants to go. I love these worksheets for two reasons. First, they are weekly. Period. As Friedman says in her post about the sheets, “If you have to-dos that stretch out further than a week, it can become overwhelming and meaningless.” Overwhelming and meaningless, that’s when I start crying and feel like quitting. The second reason I love these worksheets is because they allow space to write down what might be stopping me from achieving the goals and space to write down long-range goals that I can’t work on in that one week but don’t want to forget. On this, Friedman say, “Writing them down helps free my mental energy, so I can focus on other things.” Be gone, Overwhelming fiend.

So, I have reasonable and measurable goals and a nifty worksheet. Now what?

3. Join a writer’s group. Stat.

Attending a writing group, bi-weekly or monthly, isn’t always an option because of time or money or location. But, when I have the resources, that’s where I go. Those groups make me accountable, push me forward on writing projects, large or small, and feed me with an energy that I can’t ignore. By the time you read this, I will have attended my first Roundtable in too long of a while. All the anxiety of reading out loud and sharing a rough story is worth it if it means this next project, a collection of flash fiction, will move beyond an idea.

Your turn. What’s your secret to staying on top of your goals? Spill it here, because if anything, we will learn from each other.

* Photo credit: redcargurl on Flickr.com
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In the spirit of NaNoWriMo

Thirty days, 50,000 words, one first draft. That’s a sure-fire way to jump-start a novel.

In a few weeks, writers from every walk of life will crack their knuckles and punch out that dreamy first line of a story that will carry them through a mass, online write-in. Coffee shops will break out the extension cords. Families will go ignored. Stories will get written, dammit, no matter what.

National Novel Writing Month.

I’m not participating this year. Several other projects demand my attention, one of those being the rewrite of a novel draft born during my first NaNo experience. Though, I won’t be a slave to the purple word-count bar this November, you will find me hunched over my laptop – crazy – this October.

That’s right. I’m doing all my mad writing this month.

I joined up with a group of authors on an anthology project, and I have it easy. I just have to write a 10,000 word story.

Just.

I’ve been sweating over this story.

So, in an effort to accentuate the “fun” part of this project, one of the authors spearheading the anthology suggested our own mini-NaNo: 10,000 words in thirty-one days. And, in true NaNo form, someone sent out a rally cry from the discussion board. I’m holding fast to that cry each time I sit down and open my file: No looking back.

. . .

Okay, that’s not entirely true. I’m sort of looking back. But only to recall the spirit of my first NaNoWriMo experience, in which I made it all the way to the 50,000 mark. If I could do that then, I can do this now. Here’s my plan (tips that apply, really, to any first-draft writing spree):

1. Start once, and stick with that beginning.

I’ve restarted this short story three times, and each restart kills my confidence. Restructuring the beginning can come later. When I get to that point, I know exactly what resource I’ll turn to: the October 2011 issue of Writer’s Digest, page 52, where Les Edgerton, Nancy Kress, and James Scott Bell talk about the first 50 pages. Their articles mainly address the novel writing process, but successful short stories and novels have a lot in common, one being powerful beginnings.

2. Write a scene at a time.

If the scene I know should come next  absolutely won’t come forth, from my mind to the screen, I’ll write whatever scene is formulated in my mind. Reordering can also come later. . . . I’ll be honest here. Practicing this tip is more difficult than it sounds; I want desperately to write in a linear way. But, I also want to reach the end of the story.

3. Don’t worry about where the story is going.

Not yet. There’s plenty that must be written in order to discover the roots in a story, which keep all the characters bound together. Will Boast said it in his essay for Glimmer Train (the link to which I found on Jane Friedman’s site):

Give yourself a good deal of raw material to work with before you begin to edit.

My friend, E. Victoria Flynn, spoke of a similar idea in her comment on my most recent post, where we talked about the amount of writing we put down on paper in relation to the writing we send out into the world:

My stories wouldn’t exist…if it weren’t for [all] the chaff.

Write the chaff. Trust the process. No looking back.

I’m not kidding.

Scroll down, not up.

Forge ahead. Whether you’re about to embark on a 50,000 word journey, or are in the middle of a 700 word blog post that’s choking your muse, remember a first draft isn’t the be-all-end-all of your writing career (…this I will repeat to myself in the mirror tomorrow morning, you know).

If it’s the 50,000 journey you’re on, leave your Twitter handle. I’ll cheer for you. I have pom-poms.

Now, get moving. Get to writing.

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How a Middle School Track Meet Informed My Writing

In the seventh grade, I signed up for athletics. I lasted for one season (skinny, asthmatic kids are better suited for things like Drama), but I stayed long enough to experience a powerful moment.

After one look, and a few practices into the school year, the coaches figured out that I was C-team material. I was too short to spike a volleyball and couldn’t complete an overhand serve if my popularity depended on it (which it did). I was easily run over in basketball and was given an alternate uniform that screamed “sub.” During games, I took my seat at the bench. But during each practice, I did the drills and ran the laps. When track season rolled around, Coach Lewis looked at me and said “long distance runner.” He signed me up for the 400 meter race.

We didn’t practice with Coach Lewis often during track season, which made him all the more intimidating when he did show up on the field. He barked orders, shouted praise, laughed once in a while. On a particularly chilly Saturday morning at a track meet, he said the one sentence that has stuck with me ever since.

“Quit your coughin’, Craig!”

Cold weather aggravates asthma, and during the middle of the 400 meter event, I started wheezing, sputtering, slowing down. I jogged in the outside lane. Coach Lewis didn’t like that. He walked up to the chain link fence that surrounded the track, stuck his head out like a snapping turtle, and hollered.

“Quit your coughin’, Craig!”

I was shocked. Had he forgotten I had asthma? Where was the sympathy? Too scared to stop and ask him, I picked up the pace. I took the deepest breaths I could manage and the longest strides my chicken legs would take. I merged into the inside lane, rounded the last turn, and passed that tall girl with the mean eyes. I focused on the white lines that marked my lane and tuned into the sound of my shoes hitting the asphalt of the track. I pushed myself, into fourth place, earning a ribbon and a big boost of confidence.

“Quit your coughin’, Craig!”

Coach Lewis’ words flashed through my mind last week as I experienced the same shortness of breath and sluggish feeling. This time, it wasn’t my asthma slowing me down, though, it was fear. I had reached a familiar point in my novel draft, the place in the story where ideas  scatter and plot weakens, the moment where I stare at the blank screen and worry if what I write next will kill the energy in the work.

Barbara O’Neal calls that place “The Slough of Despond.” In her post on Writer Unboxed, O’Neal says:

This is the [place] on the old maps, the murky, muddy spot where quicksand sucks at the feet and demons overtake the heart.

I’ve been here before, with this same story. In the past, I’ve faltered and quit – full stop – and gone back to the beginning to rework chapter one. But, this time is different. I’ve got Coach Lewis breathing down my neck. And, I have a few other incentives to keep me moving forward.

1. The Radio. I recently read my story, “Red Velvet Sunday,” on WUWM’s Lake Effect program (click here to listen). Nothing makes you feel more like a writer than answering questions about the craft and having the honor of reading your work to a new audience. The experience was like a shot of adrenaline, and it was a reminder that good things do happen, usually at just the right time — like during a writing lull when you wonder if you’ve got it in you to succeed.

2. Jody Hedlund. In her post, “How to Beat the Fear of Being a One Book Wonder,” she talks about old self-doubts that resurfaced while writing her second novel. Her thoughts on how to move through those fears apply to writers at any phase.

3. Ira Glass. In his video on storytelling (part 1) (the link found via a post from Jane Friedman on Writer Unboxed), he talks about “the anecdote” as a sequence of actions that move a story forward one moment at a time. That’s how I can get through this next section so that, as Barbara O’Neal says, I’ll “eventually…have a finished draft. To rewrite. So goes the game.”

How about you? What memorable moments keep you from coughing and sputtering your way to “I quit?”

Coach Lewis

Me, bottom right corner, finisher.

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