Monthly Archives: January 2012

Jan 2 2012

Goals, Goals, Goals II

Okay, after spending the better part of eleven hours in a car today, I am finally home from the holiday vacation and family visit.  Even though I am dog tired, I felt the need to follow through on my promise of yesterday and post my short term goals for January and long term goals (or medium if you prefer) for all of 2012.  For the record, this is my 50th post!  By the end of 2012, I better have over 200 or I will have blown it in the goals department!

I have several things I want to focus on this year.  Of course, there is the writing.  I’ve basically set myself up to spend the year writing and I don’t want to waste it.  But I also want to engage in a few more activities. I want to blog more regularly.  I’ve been shooting for about ten posts a month, but I want twelve to be a minimum now.  I would prefer to blog, on average, every other day. We’ll see. I am also very poor at keeping in touch with friends and family.  I want to call and email on a regular basis, so I am including this as a part of my overall writing goal.

My concrete numerical goal for 2012 is at least a half million words broken down as follows:

350,000 words for general novel & short story writing

90,000 words blogging

60,000 words written to family & friends in the process of keeping in touch.

The latter does not include text messages, but it will include talking on the phone.  Some people (like most of my family) doesn’t do email, so I’ll be counting an hour on the phone as 500 words.  I picked that number because I’m a dreadfully slow typist and it’s rare when I can write 500 words an hour.  Trust me, if I’m on the phone more than two hours a month, that’s rare.  It’s also something I want to change.  Thus the goal.

The first goal of 350,000 words is going to count multiple drafts, but not every word of every draft.  My word count during edits will be small, which means I’ll have to be working on other original projects while editing.  I’m shooting to have the first draft of Blood Speak, the sequel to Dim Speak, done by February.  I want to write a couple of drafts, have an alpha reading phase, another draft, editor phase. another draft or two, and publish a finished product by July.  We’ll see how that goes.  It’s a ramped up time schedule, but I think I can make it happen.  If I’m not happy with it, I guess it’ll be a little late.

My writing goals for January 2012 are modest because I want to achieve my first set of goals this year, and I also want to spend some time finally getting Dim Speak on the proverbial ebook shelves.  I’d like to see this done by January 15th.  Thus, my writing goal for January is only 25,000 words along with 7,000 blogging words. It is very important to me that I get Dim Speak published this month.

My non-writing goals involve getting in a little better shape.  I have a friend I will hopefully be able to work out with.  Having someone along is usually a big help.  Strangely enough, I want to half finish Dragon Age.  This is an RPG video game for my new computer.  I have not played video games for nine years.  I gave them up so I could focus on my thesis.  I asked for and received this game for Christmas and now I want to finish it by the end of February so I can move on to Dragon Age II.  This may sound like a silly goal, but I’m trying to find different ways to relax other than watching old TV episodes for a second or third time.  I’ve been looking forward to playing a video game for a long time, but don’t worry.  I won’t be allowed to play it until my daily goals are done.  ;-)

Jan 1 2012

Goals, Goals, Goals

I am not one for new year resolutions.  I don’t believe most people are capable of changing their habits just because they feel the need once a year. Changing yourself is a long slow process.  On the other hand, I do like setting goals for myself, and if one is looking for change it needs to be done incrementally and a regular schedule of goals will help with this.

Like it or not, a single set of goals a year is not enough to really get the job done.  Goals need to be set monthly or even weekly.  And sometimes, your just goal needs to be to maintain.  Don’t lose the success you’ve garnered because you’re tired of working at it.  Quitting won’t help.  Learning to maintain is probably the most important part.

If you need an example, look at the way most people try to lose weight.  They have a goal made in terms of pounds lost.  They either quit along the way, or hit their goal and stop working at losing the weight.  Either way, the most important follow up goal is to maintain what you have accomplished.  You wouldn’t necessarily have to diet to lose weight, but you do have to diet to maintain.  If you go back to the old ways of eating, you put the weight right back on.

The same is true of anything.  I want to get into the habit of writing more.  I am setting my goals this year in such a way that I’ll have to write most days.  In effect, my goal will be to write every day.  Of course, life gets in the way.  We all have to live it.  But my next point is flexibility in your goals.  You need to know that one mistake doesn’t qualify you for failure.  Your goals have to be able to handle setbacks, or at the very least, you do.  You have to be able to put the bad day behind you and get back to work.  So again, make your goals or yourself flexible enough to handle a setback.  They will happen.  Accept it now, and you’ll be better prepared to stay on the path.

Unfortunately, I am still on vacation.  The person I am staying with is awake and demanding my time.  That is, they’re talking to me and I can’t focus on this post any longer.  My apologies.  I’ll be back tomorrow to post my goals for January and all of 2012.