Today makes a week into the new year. Normally, I would have posted some sort of “goal” oriented post on the 1st of the year, but I decided to wait a week to think about what I really wanted. But, before I roll onto my goals for 2014 and beyond, I want to do a quick recap of my 2013 goals and accomplishments.
In January, I joined an online writers group with aspirations of actually writing my first book. It took most of the year, but in September, I finally succeeded. It really didn’t take 9 months to write the book. It just looks like that. I didn’t set my goal of publishing until July, but once I had my ‘aha’ moment, I could not stop.
So back to January – I did make a conscious effort to write more in 2013, and I began to write in my journal towards the end of the month. I started off with a few days a week, and built up to 5 days a week, taking the weekends off. Then, in March, I started writing daily. I wrote every day into November. I had a total of 202 days of writing daily. I really didn’t have a total written word goal for 2013, but as of December 31st, I ended up with around 180,000 words written. No, not all published, but written words just the same. You see, it was a dedication I decided to make, and I stuck with it pretty well this time. I have made these silly writing goals many times over the years, and 2013 seemed to have been the year to follow through.
Now, onto 2014 and beyond! My one year goal is to write 4 books. I want to finish up with Linear Shift, and write 3 more (at minimum) before the years end. Also, I have a goal of writing every single day in 2014, but I will give myself a pass one day of each month. Even if I only write a sentence saying that I do not feel like writing today, at least I gave it the attention to write those words down. I am sticking with the mental habit of thinking about writing just as much as the actual writing. My daily word count goal is 825. I first thought of going with the 1,000 words a day club, but I reviewed my first week of the new year, as well as scrutinized my writing habits from last year, and decided 1,000 words a day, every day seemed like putting too much pressure on me. I averaged 647 words per day last year spanning 272 total writing days. I am averaging just over 800 words a day through the first week this year, and I don’t feel pressure at all to hit that goal. Honestly, I hope to blow it away, but if not, I will be ecstatic with 300,000 words written in 2014.
Ok, that was my one year goal. In January of 2015, I hope to be writing about how I achieved that goal, hoping to increase it next year. Now, my five year goal is a little more difficult to nail down. Sure, I could say I want to be a national best selling author within five years and truly mean it. Well I do! But, I think that is more dream than anything else. I true goal needs to be achievable by me without any outside assistance. Meaning, I do not need thousands of fans to go out and buy my book to make the goal a reality. No, I think my goal needs to be based off my own physical ability. I want to write 30 books in the next 5 years. Not an easy task, I assure you. I think that ‘if’ I can build enough momentum in sales (I know, depending on the fan aspect just a little bit) I can leave my day job behind, and write full time. Naturally, if that were too happen, the sooner the better to achieve writing 30 books in 5 years. That is an average of 6 books a year. Heck, my 2014 goal is 4 books, and I secretly hope to squeak out 5, but I am not going to say anything about that, not just yet…
So, there you have it. I have set my one and five year goal… in writing at least. I have other goals, not related to writing that I am not going to share here. I have the written down somewhere, and need to re-evaluate them at some point this month.