What Are Your Writing Goals For 2013

WHAT ARE YOUR WRITING GOALS FOR 2013? Last week I admonished you to really sit down and write, and I’m happy to report that in the final seven days I’ve managed to comply with my own recommendation, and though one project is working late, I’m nicely on monitor with where I had hoped to be now, largely by simply flipping open the laptop and writing. But there’s a bigger picture there. Just writing at random is usually a fun exercise and can lead to some terrific concepts, however should you’re a bit more project oriented, like me, you’re not thinking, Will I write 1000 phrases of anything today, however Will I write 1000 words of this novel today? And that novel has a beginning, a middle, and perhaps an end roughed out somewhere, if only simply in your personal head. Those rely as objectives. Are you content material to spend the next ten years writing that novel? Maybe. And if that's the case, okay. But when you’re thinking, No, I want to write more than a couple books in my lifetime, and I actually have di fferent concepts I’m enthusiastic about that I’d like to discover after this, and so on, you must consider setting some objectives. Here it's, nonetheless Januaryâ€"a good time to consider the year ahead and set some goals for yourself. I have, and have even gotten typically OCD about it. You don’t need to be as cripplingly organized as I am with this sort of stuff (and yeah, I admit it, to a point all my spreadsheets and stuff like that are a type of work-avoidance) but everyone can profit from slightly clever and balanced objective-setting. Basketball legend Michael Jordan mentioned setting targets in his e-book I Can’t Accept Not Trying: Michael Jordan on the Pursuit of Excellence. He said he’s at all times approached things in a step-by-step trend, setting a sequence of brief-time period targets. “As I look again, every one of many steps or successes led to the next one. When I received reduce from the varsity group as a sophomore in high school, I discovered one thi ng. I knew I never wanted to really feel that unhealthy once more.” Jordan set a objective of enjoying for the varsity team. “That’s what I focused on all summer season. When I worked on my recreation, that’s what I thought of. When it happened, I set another objective, an inexpensive, manageable aim that I might realistically obtain if I labored onerous enough.” He had a transparent concept of exactly where he needed to go, and centered on getting there. “As I reached those targets,” he wrote, “they built on each other. I gained a little confidence every time I came by way of.” For writers, this could have a one-to-one correspondence. If you consider getting your novel revealed the identical way a young Michael Jordan thought of playing for the varsity group, however your final manuscript has been rejected by everybody (and that’s occurred to the best of us) spend “the summer” (or no matter size of time is reasonable) writing a brand new book with that aim i n mind. Maybe the “varsity” staff is a small press, and one of the main New York houses is the NBA. But not all targets are created equal. You are perfectly free to set a goal for your self like : I shall be a billionaire by the top of this year, however should you solely have $sixteen.00 within the bank, are unemployed, and your Visa invoice is 2 months overdue, that aim is probably not totally practical. And when you have no idea tips on how to get thereâ€"you don’t have the well-known Facebook algorithm written in grease pencil on your dorm room window or a prototype fusion reactor in your storage running your fridgeâ€"a billion dollars may not be totally affordable. Anyone who’s labored in company America has probably run throughout the concept of “SMART Goals.” SMART is an acronym for: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. The thought is that your whole targets must be measured against all 5 of those standards. A goal like “I want a billion doll ars” just isn't terribly specific, even if it’s a selected quantity. There’s nothing there about how or why you’re going to get a billion dollars. It is measurable, I guess. It’s December thirty first, how a lot cash do I even have? $999,999,999? Oh well, fail! Spoiler alert, I already informed you that I don’t think this is attainable, which kind of by default makes it unrealistic. Timely? That may be taken to mean you need to achieve this aim by a specific date or that that is one thing that needs to be carried out quickly or you’re in big botherâ€"related however not exactly the same factor. In practice, SMART Goals tend to turn out to be an end unto themselves. I’ve spent extra timeâ€"and I mean far more timeâ€"in conferences to find out what our SMART Goals must be than truly working to achieving something like a SMART Goal. I spent a while in a fairly dysfunctional environment, however from what I’ve been able to gather, that is pretty much a common experienc e of the trendy office worker. “When we set objectives, we’re taught to make them specific and measurable and time-sure,” wrote Peter Bregman of the Harvard Business Review. “But it turns out that these characteristics are exactly the explanations goals can backfire. A particular, measurable, time-certain objective drives behavior that’s narrowly targeted and infrequently results in both dishonest or myopia. Yes, we often attain the objective, however at what value?” So, what, am I now trying to tell you to not set targets, that targets are bad? In his e-book The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking, Oliver Burkeman wrote: “In singling out one goal, or set of objectives, and striving to meet it, you'll invariably exert an effect on other, interlinked elements of the factor you’re making an attempt to vary. In an car manufacturing firm, that might mean ravenous your analysis division of funding in an effort to meet a predetermined market share. Applied to the personal realm, it'd imply, for instance, reaching the monetary wealth you dreamed of on the expense of your private relationships: attaining your goals at the expense of ruining your life.” Yikes. But none of that means you shouldn’t set goals, it just means you need to be intelligent (rather than SMART) and balanced in what your objectives are. Start with this three-letter word: Why? Bringing this again to writing, let’s say you’ve been pondering, like me, that you just wish to write more brief tales, and you’re on the lookout for ways to keep from getting so caught up in every little thing else that you go one other 12 months not writing short stories. For me, at least, the “why” is that I can get extra ideas on paper in shorter types, which appeals to me, and I similar to brief tales and it’s one thing I need to get better at doing. From a “enterprise” perspective, they don’t pay for crap, but they do help keep me “on the market” w ith new work more than once in a blue moon. For one thing like this, “I just really need to, it's going to make me joyful,” is a wonderfully acceptable “why.” It might assist to outline what you mean by the word “extra.” I’ve given myself the lofty goal of writing a brief story every month. This just isn't going to be straightforward, going from maybe one quick story a 12 months to twelve, but I’ll attempt. That’s measurable and well timed, right? I assume it’s attainable. Twelve is a particular variety of a specific thing (short tales). Cool. Now, that is the place personal objectives can and really much ought to be totally different from company objectives. When Peter Bregman warned us that SMART Goals can result in “dishonest or myopia”â€"who am I cheating if I find yourself writing fewer than twelve tales in 2013? I’m not a slave to my own goals. I’m not going to plagiarize to be able to get to quantity twelve. I’m definitely not going to kill mysel f or anything if I only write a pair. I can’t sue somebody for getting in my method. Also observe that my objective is to write a short story each month this year, not to promote a brief story every month this yr. That gives me permission to only write. Some number of these twelve quick tales would possibly completely suck. I’ve admitted to writing dangerous brief tales. I daresay that everybody who’s written multiple quick story has written no less than one dangerous one. The writing is something that’s completely in my control. I decide to sit down down and write. The story concept is mine, the characters, setting, and style are mine, and so forth. Whether or not it’s printed somewhere isn’t necessarily under my management. If your goals are centered on what you're doing, what you need, what you possibly can accomplish, and you're level-headed enough not to get so wrapped up in your own targets that you could’t nonetheless stay a cheerful and fulfilled life on the id entical time, then your objectives won’t lead you to cheat or commerce your partner for a Ferrari. If you do set your self the aim of getting printed this yr, like Michael Jordan making the varsity team, then approach that the way in which he did. He practiced all summer time. He worked on his abilities. He made himself adequate to be a varsity participant. The objective tells you where you need to go, it’s getting there that requires work, talent, and adaptability. Happy travels! â€"Philip Athans About Philip Athans