Goals

Tomorrow, I should go below 100 words per day to finish on time. Surely, I am not the only one who checks this daily. It is a big motivator for me.

By now, everyone knows that my goal is only 10,000 for the month. I am not apologizing for that goal. It is a realistic goal. It is a goal that doesn’t stress me out too badly. That is the best kind of goal.

If you want to write a novel, it is okay to break it down into smaller goals. It is okay not to outline. It is okay to outline. It is okay to plot most of your book first. It okay not to plot at all. I wouldn’t recommend sticking too religiously to an outline. It might stifle the creativity.

Each of these steps could be one of your goals, or not. Which goals you choose are up to you. The end result might be dictated by a publisher, but how you get there is completely up to you. I can’t tell you how to do it. Neither can Chris Baty. Neither can Stephen King. They can tell you what works for them, but you are the one who has to figure out what works for you.

That isn’t to say getting advice from folks who know what they are doing is bad. It isn’t. It can be extremely helpful. Just don’t get so involved in learning how to write you forget to write. I went through a couple of years of reading a lot and writing a little.

It wasn’t that I needed that much research. I had been writing for years. I was so scared that my writing was bad that I did what I knew to do for other pursuits. I studied. I kept saying I would write tomorrow, or whenever I got through with this book. There was always something.

That is what I like about NaNoWriMo and Camp NaNo. They give you the right to write crap. It doesn’t have to be great. It doesn’t even have to make sense. It just has to be written.

One of my goals this month was to write this blog every day. The times have differed by a few hours most nights, but I have managed. That feels like an accomplishment.

I have several writing goals. At this point, I couldn’t imagine not having one.