Writerly Resolutions for 2012

[Brandi_R]

It's resolution time! For those of you who posted goals in 2011, 2010, 2009 or 2008, check out those previous threads and see what you've accomplished.

Below, I've posted a few thoughts on how you might go about making writing resolutions that are both challenging and attainable. Post your resolutions here. Declare your intentions!

Think Big
Focus on what you want to accomplish. For this initial list of goals, don’t worry about time constraints, your internal naysayer’s doubts, or other insecurities and concerns. Just make a list. What do you want to accomplish? How will you make (or keep) writing a regular part of your life? Do you want to write a novel? Finally take a short story to completion? Find at least a half an hour in every day to write? Get a spot on a morning talk show with your book as a book-of-the-month selection? From the humble to the most glamorous, these are all valid goals. What are yours?

Break it Down
Most goals are lofty—and that’s a great quality for a goal. But in order to set yourself up for success, it’s important to think about how you’re going to reach them. For each goal you identify, think about how you’ll get there.

Let’s say your goal is to write a novel. That’s exciting—and huge! Break it down into smaller goals that all work toward that larger goal. Those smaller goals might look like this:

1. settle on one idea for the novel out of the four I’ve been tossing around
2. write at least one hour a day in the morning before work
3. arrange a critique group with writer friends to workshop while in progress
4. seek out people to share this goal with for support
5. read a novel a month similar in subject or voice to the one I’m writing

If you’re goal is to find a half an hour in every day to devote to writing, then pull out your calendar and begin marking those times in as appointments. Perhaps you can devote part of your lunch hour to writing on Tuesday and Thursday. Maybe you can get up a half an hour earlier on the other days of the week. Or you might cut down on time at the grocery store by planning ahead and only going once a week instead of every other night.

Some long-term goals take years to achieve—even decades. Once you have the large goals and the steps to reach them, you can make choices about what’s reasonable to accomplish this year.

Be Specific
Don’t just tell yourself, “I need to write more.” Instead, formulate how much more you want to write. Do you want to reach a certain word count each week? Or spend a certain amount of time every day? When you’re specific, you can gauge how well you’re meeting your goal and remind yourself to stick with it if you find yourself slipping.

Choose something that’s both reasonable and challenging. If you’re not writing often right now, you might not want to set a goal to write three hours a day. It may feel overwhelming to maintain that and you’ll quickly find yourself frustrated. But if you start with something reasonable and stick with it, you can up the quantity later. Give yourself a chance to feel productive and successful.

So what are your writing goals for 2012? How do you plan on accomplishing them?

[GS2991]

Well I plan on getting my book back out and working on it. At least getting one illustration per month. there is one biggy and the othere biggy is I want to rewrite, edit, rewrite, edit, rewrite and polish some of my shorts get them good enough to were I can start thinking about publishing and work some more, after that I want to gather some up and give PubIt a try. Two of my biggys that I want to do. And and finishing my storys first page to last no more half bits. (Bad me bad!) I will try working out an ending before hitting paper mabe that will help. I plan on getting more shorts wrote. I'm likeing the quick one page shorts. It keeps ones mind thinking. Also I plan on writing a good poem or two the local paper has a contest during the summer and I will try out for it. I think you can win money but I just think it would be cool to have somthing of mine in the paper. Also I would like to find a short story contest to enter and look for any local writing clubs or somthing. I have no clue if there are any around. Also plan on getting a computer. That would be much easier to have all my storys in order rather than scatered papers in piles. Also I am setting aside a half hour to three hours to write late at night depending on how my writing is going. And try to write more on the weekends but sometimes I just can't. I wrote more this year than ever (thanks to you guys) and I am going to beat that mark. So that is also a biggy goal. Also I'm uh going tooo uh er work on my terrible spelling and grammar. ..... A lot of things I have planed and I think with a set schedule I can get a rithum going and meet or surpass my goals. My other hobbies will suffer but writing I am coming to enjoy more and makes a good enough distraction so I won't need the other hobies. I also have other goals but well there is my writery resolutions.