Conquering Your Writing Goals with a Strategic Plan

Let’s face it, 2020 was tough on some of us, if not all of us. 

I know that my writing plan for last year was sailing smoothly from January to February, and then, by mid-March, it skidded into a crazy tailspin, halting at our first lockdown. From March 17th through to the end of December, it felt like running over a bed of sharp nails—known as a contagious pandemic—which flattened all four tires in a matter of seconds. It left me feeling extremely anxious about my family, my friends, my health, my wellness, my job, and my writing career (what there is of it at this point). As of December 26^th, we landed back into another 28-day lockdown that may hang-on much longer than we want it to.

So, what do we do? How do we plan for a possible 365-day lockdown in 2021? I know that I don’t want to repeat the mess I waded through in 2020, that’s for sure.

It is January 4, 2021, so we have time to think about this. Instead of making a New Year Resolution list this year (most of us are unsuccessful at completing these lists anyway), we should concentrate on our writing goals. 

What kind of writing goals do you want to conquer? 

Think about the goals you would like to be successful at over this coming year… and maybe, look ahead at five years from now. Where do you want to be as a writer? Do you want to win a contest? Do you want to be published? Do you want to be on the Best Sellers List? Do you want to retire from your day job and write full time?

If you answered yes to any of those questions above, you will need to roll up your sleeves and be prepared to work hard toward getting there. Not only that, but you need to be dedicated, work consistently, and be persistent.

Remember that everything takes time. It is like a person who wants to lose 25 pounds. You can’t snap your fingers and drop the weight in a week. You need to exercise, eat healthy, and put in the time and effort to MAKE IT HAPPEN. Little by little, your effort will make a big difference in your strength, in your core and you will feel 100% better about yourself. It is the same thing for a writer. You want to write a novel, so if you write a chapter every day, it could take 50 to 100 days to write the novel. Each time you make an effort toward completing your task, it is one baby step closer to accomplishing your ultimate goal.

Now that you have some writing goals in mind, we need to develop a plan before we can manage, execute it, and complete the task. 

Strategic goal planning is important to a writer. It provides a sense of direction and outlines small measurable and attainable goals. It is the perfect tool for guiding you through the day-to-day steps, evaluating your progress, and revising your approach as you move through the year.

There are three easy steps to building a strategic goal plan for writers:

1.)  Determine what your goals are. Choose three to make it easy.

• One short-term goal that could be managed between a week to a month.
• One mid-term goal that could be obtained within 3 to 6 months.
• One long-term goal that could be mastered by the end of the year.
• If you are ambitious, add a future goal that you could work toward that might take 2 to 5 years to complete (like retiring to write full-time).

• Example #1: If your goal is to write a short story this year. Your short-term goal might be to do some research on your setting, your characters, and your outline of the story in four weeks. Your mid-term might be to have a 5000-word draft completed in three to six months. Your long-term goal might be to have edited the story multiple times by you or critique partners and have it ready to submit to a contest or a magazine by the end of the year.

• Example #2: If your goal is to write a novel this year. Your short-term goal might be to come up with characters and an outline for your novel showing at least six pivotal moments within a week or two. Your mid-term goal might be to have your first draft completed within four to six months. Your long-term goal would be to have revised the novel multiple times over the next three to four months before you hand it off to your editor or beta readers. In this case, you might have an extra-long goal of working with an editor before sending out queries to find an agent. Then, the extra-extra long goal would be to snag a literary agent and then they try to sell your manuscript to a publisher, while you are writing your next novel in half the time it took you to write the first novel.

• NOTE: If the second example makes you so anxious that you might want to puke, BUT as a writer, this is still the direction you want to go in, then hey, you are not alone. We can be puke buddies. So, send me a direct message and we can talk about it together and figure out ways to accomplish our dreams. 

2.  Develop a strategic plan to accomplish your goals. 

• Use a calendar to dedicate specific dates and times in which you will work toward your goals.
• Get up one hour earlier each day and use it to further your goal, whether it is to write or edit a new chapter, or take a novel-writing course or workshop or to just read a how-to book.
• Make a sign for your door telling your family that you are busy writing from 5 AM – 7 AM.
• Give up watching a television show, playing a video game, or scrolling through social media for at least one or two hours. You would be surprised at how much you can accomplish in an hour.
• Plan your time as if it is your job. If you don’t, you will never have time to achieve what you want to do.

3.  Execute and review the plan daily, weekly, and/or monthly.

Review it. Is it working for you? If not, revise the plan, until you find a plan that will work for you. Everyone is different, living completely different lives, so you will need to tweak your plan until it is perfect for you.

• Example: You may find that #5amwritersclub is not working for you and you would rather catch up on sleep. If you can’t handle getting up an hour early, try writing from 7 PM – 9 PM while your spouse is watching a hockey game on the television or the kids are washing the dishes. Or, maybe you are a night owl and like to write from midnight until 3 AM? Whatever you prefer, schedule it and do it. Just get it done.

Fact: We are living in the middle of a pandemic. None of us have ever dealt with this before. It is possible that one of us will not be here at the end of the year. What would you rather do… sit on the couch playing video games or watching Netflix, waiting for your time to end? Or, work hard, keep busy, and try to achieve the possible? Maybe, if you plan well enough, you could do it all?

Bottom line, to conquer your writing goal you need to determine your specific want (your goal), develop a strategic plan, and execute it. If you want to succeed at something in 2021, you will need to go after it. You have nothing to lose by trying. Life is short. Enjoy it. Be happy. Celebrate all the small things.

NOTE: In case you were wondering, YES, I have a detailed strategic plan for 2021, and it involves drinking coffee from my new cup and swearing:

• Short-term: Edit like a motherfucker.
• Mid-term: Write like a motherfucker.
• Long-term: Submit like a motherfucker.
• Extra-long-term: Publish my novel. People read it. People love it. Some people hate it. People talk about it. People tell everyone they know to read it. People want to read more of my work. I smile, knowing my grandchildren will one day read it too, long after I’m gone.

Happy New Year! MAKE IT HAPPEN!