5 Tips to Meet Your Writing Goals

Have you made a resolution to write more in 2015?  We are five days in, how are you doing? Every year I set wonderful goals for myself and then when I sit down to accomplish them, I find myself stumped. Okay, I wrote down the goal of writing a thousand words a day, why am I not doing it?

That got me to thinking how I might do things differently this year. 

Every year I also keep a chart to check my daily word count. I started that because I liked looking back at how much I was accomplishing during NaNoWriMo (National November Writing Month).  I liked watching the word count go up every day so I started doing it on my own outside the month. I’d just write down my daily count and then my monthly count and then add it all up at the end of the year to see who well I’d done.  It also helped me see which months were better than others, and if there were times I was more prolific.  As  a result of keeping those daily records I found I was writing more every week, and subsequently I was also writing more every month.

But I needed daily tools too, to keep me going. Here are some ideas I’ve come up with for meeting my goals that might also help you  meet daily writing goals.

1.      Start with a realistic daily goal.  I was very envious of a woman who said she had to write 1500 words a day, and then I heard someone else say she wrote a thousand words a day. Both sounded good but what I found was that I struggled to meet that 1500 word goal so as a result I would give up. Writing a thousand words is more realistic for me. But then I heard best selling mystery author John Sandford say he aims at 750 words. That is the length of a normal newspaper piece, and as a former newspaper reporter he had to do that every day, so he knew he could do it.

 I decided to try a smaller number too. The point was to write every single day so I lowered my daily goal to 500. I’ve discovered that goal is very possible for me. Knowing I don’t need to fight to get to that thousand words has freed me up and I know I can do at least 500. The result, of course, is that I now normally hit that thousand, but knowing I get to count the day as productive by hitting 500 has made a big difference.

Start with 300 if that helps. Or 200. Try writing just a page a day. The idea is to get something on the written page.

2.      Keep a record. As I’ve mentioned that daily record shows me problem times, but it also showed me the days of the week when I could really take off and write.  I also noticed that when I got on a roll for several days, I might write more than my normal goal. It showed me days of the week when I was more prolific so that I could concentrate on getting my word count up then. And it showed me those down stretches when I was letting other things get in the way. That made me work on other ideas for picking up the word count.

3.      Try writing sprints. This is a wonderful tip I got from Candace Havens, a prolific romance writer. At a conference I heard her say she would keep an egg timer on her desk and when she was looking to get her writing jump started, she would set a timer for five or ten minutes and then sit and write until it went off. Sometimes she might set it for 20. As a result she would not only get some writing done, but it would get her going on those days she just didn’t feel like working.

4.      Write dialogue.  If I’m faced with a scene I don’t want to write I sometimes write it from two characters talking things out. I don’t put in anything but their conversation. Letting the characters speak not only helps me get a better understanding of them, but it seems to free up my mind to just get the words out. Let them describe the events to each other. Let them react to what happened. If you don’t like the conversation you can always change it.

5.      Write a scene you want to write. This is a great way to get started when you don’t feel like writing. Yes, it means writing out of order and some people find it hard to do, but think of it this way – now you have a scene done and you can build toward it. If you are one of those people who likes to outline, then consider it part of your outline. Best selling author Suzanne Brockman says her outlines are often so involved she can sometimes just  write in the dialogue or expand on it and the story is done. 

The big key to keeping up your word count and reaching those daily writing goals is to come to the keyboard every day ready to write. As Nora Roberts says about how she continues to complete book after book: “It’s your job. Would you call in sick for no reason? Would you ignore it for days on end? It’s your job. You do it.”

John Sandford says the same thing. When I got a chance to talk with him in November, I asked about the advantages of being a journalist and how it helped in his fiction writing. What he told me made perfect sense. “When I got to work every day, I knew I was going to have to write a story. I couldn’t just say I didn’t want to or didn’t feel like writing today. I had to write a story or I wouldn’t get paid.” I knew what he meant. With 30 years spent in TV newsrooms, I showed up every day ready to write. There was no way around it and no room for excuses.

And that is the bottom line in setting your goals. Like Nora Roberts said, writing fiction is a job. If you’re doing it for fun, then those goals don’t matter. But if you want it to pay, then you have to put in the time like John Sandford said.  My overall goal for this year is to set realistic goals and then look at how to make them work.

 

  

Words and More Words

Several years ago while reading a favorite author I found him using the same phrase in a dialogue tag. I can't even remember what it was now, but it kept popping up, enough to be distracting. By the end of the book I found myself wondering why he or an editor had not caught that. It was so obvious and he was a best selling author too.


It didn't keep me from buying his next book, but it did bother me when I remembered what I had noticed in the last book and here it was again -- the same word. Surely he would have found something else to use. Or not use anything at all. Yes, we all use "said," but that is natural and it is one of those words we don't notice.  If we say a character "grinned" on the other hand every time a character says something we are probably going to notice. Again, it is time to have the character do something else or don't write it at all.


As writers we probably all have crutch words we find ourselves using over and over. I have to watch out for things like "just" or "nearly." I'm not sure why but I keep throwing them in. I even put in "sure" more often than I should. I've learned now to go through and look for my crutch words and remove them or rewrite the sentence.


This is a long way around getting to the point that we need to pay attention to the words we use. I am teaching a class on short story writing and one of the points I keep trying to make is that when a writer is involved in short story writing you must be more precise with your words. Last year at the Tony Hillerman Conference in Santa Fe, a friend and I had a chance to chat with best selling author David Morrell about writing short stories. He told us he like writing short stories because they made him learn to be more precise in his words. They made him look for different, simpler ways to say things. And most importantly they made him look for just the right word to use to make a point.


This weekend my sister and I played a game with our ten year old niece, where we have to say a word that starts with the letter of the last word given. It's a simple game, of course, but when you have to come up with a bunch of words starting with "e" or "k" or "h," it makes you start thinking.  And just as when I'm writing, I found myself coming up with the same words (and getting shouted down -- "you already used that") so I had to be creative. 


And I will remember that exercise next time I sit down to write. Look for different words, remember different words, celebrate new words and look up things you don't know or search for just the right word, as David Morrell suggested.


But at the same time, I must issue a warning to be careful of the words you chose.  I remember a book once where an author used the word "thrummed." Wow, I thought the first time I saw it. What a unique way to say what a woman is feeling inside. Then I found it again, a little later in the book. By the third time I found it, I was no longer thinking, wow, I was thinking lazy or confused. The word was no longer unique. It wasn't a normal word and while I might skip over "said" and maybe even one too many grins, I was going to remember something as different as "thrummed."


Words can be your friends or they can be your worse enemies when they aren't coming. But keep looking for the best ones. They are out there!

Just Do it

by Becky Martinez

Just do it.

That’s a great sounding saying, but how easy is it to do that? From losing weight to starting an exercise program to writing a book, what does it take to “just do it?”

It sounds so promising when you say it, when you’re thinking about it. Then you’re all charged up and excited to get going. Maybe you are at a conference or out with a group of writing friends talking about your book and brainstorming ideas and you know exactly what you want to do.

Then the regular day kicks in.  You go back to the real life. How can you continue to “just do it” when you’re back to your normal routine.

The truth is you might want to do it, but you can’t just start and automatically make it happen.   Even if you start out filled with anticipation and excitement immediately, how likely are you to do the same thing tomorrow and the next day and the next until you actually can say you are just doing it and you will continue?

How can you make it happen? There are a number of ways to start building that daily chore into a daily routine or habit.

Try baby steps. One thing that I have done successfully in the past is to begin small.  Take that story idea and start developing more than just the vague thought about a man faced with proving his innocence in the murder of his wife, or a woman who wakes up 500 years in the future and isn’t sure how she got there.  Those might be great premises, but what do you do to come up with a story behind them?

Well, you might start developing your character more or pushing that plot a little bit forward. Who is she? What does she want?  What does he need to do to solve the crime? Who is he and who was his dead wife? These are baby steps that can when answered can move your story up another level. 

Keep going. Try doing those baby steps again tomorrow. Continue to develop that character or your plot. What is the first obstacle he or she is going to face now that she is in the future. Is she mistaken for the commander of a space ship? Start bringing in challenges or small new problems for each of your characters. Is your hero’s blood on his wife’s shirt she was wearing when she died? 

Start to own it.  Make it as steady practice to keep considering where you want that story to go or what you want that character to do. Begin to look for ways to get your characters out of their scrapes or to put them into new ones. Develop your setting more. Where does that murder story take place? What about the world where your heroine finds herself? Give it more depth until you can begin to truly see it.

Fight against setbacks.  Nothing is going to come easily or immediately and you will eventually be hit with something unexpected. That might happen to you or your characters. You’re run into a dead end with your new world. You have no idea how to propel someone into the future? What would make such a thing happen? How can you explain that to the reader? Does that obstacle make you want to give up? How can you fight that?

Plan for chaos or be ready for it.  That’s one way to fight back. Have an idea of how before you set out and just begin blindly writing the story. It goes back to item number two  and three.  If you keep developing and owning your story, you will begin to see some of the things that might happen and plan for them. 

Don’t let the doldrums get you down either. Sometimes even the ordinary can bring you to a standstill. You find yourself in the sagging middle of the book where the same old stuff is occurring. How many aliens can this woman battle? How many times can this man face another challenge that puts him at the murder scene.  

Shake things up. This might be a good time to look at some of those early challenges you came up with earlier, but didn’t use. Clear your brain and then come up with some sort of twist. Perhaps someone else from the past comes into the heroine’s new world or perhaps the husband finds out his wife was having an affair and that man might be the killer. Look for a twist to bring new life into the humdrum story. 

Recall past successes.  If you’re still having trouble making that story come alive, think about how you dealt with this in the past? What did you do other times that got you through the tough points?  Think about what worked before and see if you can apply it again. Sometimes it works and sometimes it gets tougher.

Consider your overall plan. What is working for you and what is a problem area. Write that down or keep it in mind. Are you coming up short in the character department or in your plotting? What needs more work?

Know where you want to finish. Whether it is the ending of the story, where she conquers the final alien leader or your hero proves his innocence and uncovers the real killer, think about where you want that story to end. That can go a long way toward helping you through some of those earlier steps when you get bogged down or you aren't sure what you want to happen next. Knowing how you want to end helps you know which direction to go.

Have you thought about what your writing process is? Now may be a good time to examine what you are doing that is working and what needs changing.  Come up with a process that you can use again and again.  And when that gets old, then change it up again. Be strong enough to follow the program, but always be ready to be flexible.

In the next month I am going to be going through my own writing process and bringing in some of the other processes used by other writers that have been successful for them. Think about ways to develop your own writing process.


Maybe then you’ll be ready next time you just want to “do it.”

 

KEEPING TRACK OF YOUR GOALS

by Becky Martinez

As we begin the new year we often think about goals and what we want to accomplish this year. I echo Sue Viders’ thoughts on setting goals and writing them down. When they are written down, they become much more real to us. We can see what we are striving for and we can go back later and see what we have accomplished.

Checking back later is also important. A goal that gets written down and never re-visited is as useful as a goal you carry in the back of your head. It is kind of there but not really. If you have written down your goals and posted them where you can see them everyday you will be much more likely to have them in mind as you work and you can readily see what you are accomplishing.

The idea of having a deadline for goals also can work to make certain you accomplish them. For 30 years I worked with daily deadlines. In a TV newsroom, if you don’t make your time slot your work probably won’t get on the air. There was no option to fail. You got it done on time or else. In my case as a producer, I had no choice. My show was going on the air with or without me so I better have it ready to go at 5pm or 11pm. Come 6pm or 11:35, the day and opportunity were over.

Those daily goals worked wonderful for me as a great procrastinator. As a news person I knew that 95 percent of my goals had to be done by the end of the day. Come 6pm, if I hadn’t accomplished everything it was done for the day. It made me work much faster and keep a good daily schedule.

Now as a writer I have much longer range goals, but I still find that if I don’t set some sort of daily deadline for myself I am not nearly as successful. I like the idea of having at least 500 or 1000 words as a daily goal. It means I will get something accomplished. If I know if I set a monthly goal, I’ll find myself busy on the 29^th or 30^th frantically trying to write 30000 words.

My point is to set a goal that works for you and then add one more thing.

Keep track of your work. It’s one thing to go back and check it off, but I have come up with a chart to keep track daily of how many words I write so that at the end of the month I can check back to see how successful I was.

The idea was a result of NaNoWriMo. I always enjoy that November writing month because it spurs me on to write every single day and to post my numbers on a daily basis so I can see the total accumulate. See, there’s that daily deadline coming back to haunt me. Several years ago I decided I was going to keep a daily total for myself once the month was over.

I made up my own spreadsheet and began keeping track. What I discovered as surprising. When I knew I was going to write down a number I made sure I reached my goal. I hated writing down fewer words than the previous day. Of course some days I couldn’t hit my goal, but that only made me try harder the next day.

By the end of the month I was pretty much on target. Imagine my shock and the months piled up and the totals kept accumulating. I was getting some writing done for a change.  When I finished the book I found myself with some time to regroup, but then I started also keeping track of how many pages I edited. Yes, that spreadsheet grew, but by the end of the year I was amazed at how much I accomplished.

I did the same thing the next year. This is the fourth year I will be keeping my chart, but that brings me to something else.

Celebrate those accomplishments. Don’t just keep the goals but give yourself a special reward when you meet them.

At the beginning of the year I not only write down my goals for the year I also write down what I accomplished in the last year. It always amazes me how much I did accomplish every year. It also provides new drive to try to be better next year.

When I feel like I’m not getting anything done I’ll go back and look at the goals I’ve set and whether or not I’m getting them done, but I also look at what I DID accomplish and that makes me feel a whole lot better and ready to push forward.

So, write down those goals, but don’t forget them, and always remember to celebrate those accomplishments!  

 

Setting Goals for the New Year

by Sue Viders

Yep, it’s that time of the year again...
Once again a new and untried year has been born.

And once again we make new year promises, that even before they are written down are doomed to failure.

Why? Why are all these great writing goals going down the drain with the days dish water?

Well, I don’t know about you, but I do know how it works for me.
The biggest problems I have had in past years are:
•  the goal(s) were pretty vague, such as

•  I’d like to get the mystery story published this year,
•  or change “published” to finished this year
•  I never write the goals down

•  which means I never printed them out
•  which means I never saw them

Just the other day, my publisher/agent called. She was in the midst of writing up a contract for my Weekend Writer series of guides that I am developing. One of the first questions she asked me was “Sue, where do you see yourself in the next five years?”

Ohh, how to answer that? Hmm, lots of thinking. Pondering.

Now I could have answered with wonderful sounding goals such as

•  I’d like to have five new books published or
•  Maybe 10 new books up on Kindle
•  A speaker on a national tour. No. Scratch this one. Been there. Done that. And it’s not worth the time, energy and constant traveling problems.

So minutes later the gray cells got their act together and I told her frankly that all I wanted was the money.

Crass.

Perhaps.

But honest.

As I have been published before, (two writing books with Random House) I wasn’t concerned about getting published, I was and am concerned about how much money I will make. The royalties I have received so far have given me a few new clothes and a couple of fancy dinners. In other words, not much.

To be brutally frank, for the time and energy that goes into producing a book, I want some decent financial returns.

Forget the fame, there really isn’t any.

Forget the adoring audiences, they are few and far between.

Forget the money, there isn’t much.

The bottom line, as in any business, is... what is the profit? And writing is a business. After the expenses are paid, the monies that go out to the cover artist, the copy editor, the formatting computer guru, the reams of paper that I printed and those expensive cartridges for the new printer, oh yes, the old printer gave up the ghost...had to buy a new one... after all the expenses are calculated, is there any profit?

I want enough to cover these expenses and then some to cover the time it took to write the damn book. And two or three dollars an hour for my writing time isn’t enough.

Everyone gets paid for the work they do, why not writers? At a decent rate. Even minimum wages would be great.

So back to my goal for 2013.
 
Simply stated it is “Money.”

So my goals for the year are very specific:

•  Get and sign the damn contract
•  Set a deadline for this
•  One week from today and if she hasn’t called, call her
•  And if that doesn’t come through, find another publisher
•  Finalize or at least set in motion a detailed marketing plan for the guides
•  Have them written down in detail
•  Set up a calendar with cover artist
•  Set up a time table with copy editor
•  Get the first guide finalized and up on the web
•  Set a date for this
•  Decide on dates for the rest of the guides

Set up a huge calendar on the wall that had the above data in large red  print and lesser dates and deadlines in pencil. The penciled in dates being deadlines I would like to achieve, but because they involve other writers and people, sometimes they have to be moved around, therefore they need to be erasable.

So... that’s my list of 2013 goals.

Are they achievable? I think so, but then life always happens so we’ll just have to wait and see.

But meanwhile, back to the computer to finish up another section in one of my guides.

Setting writing goals are easy, one just has to sit down every day and write.

It’s the other goals that surround the actual writing that are more difficult to set and follow through on.

I’ll do my best. That’s all anyone can do. However, writing them down, printing them out, tapping them up on the office wall, does help me stay focused.

Okay, enough venting, back to the computer. What about you? Any goals for the New Year?