BellaOnline Forums Career Fiction Writing Set your writing goals!

Now is the time of year to set your goals and setting goals for your fiction writing is no different. It may feel weird to set goals for something as creative as fiction writing, though so check out my new article Writer Goal Setting and then come back here and let us know what type of writer you envision yourself as and the steps you are going to take to get there!

Enjoy!

This is what is missing for me. I need goals and deadlines! Thank you for a great article.

1. Daily page quotas for my current adult mainstream novel. (10 pages a day)
2. Send out my completed juvenile works.
3. Keeping up with my commercial non-fiction work online.

I'm thinking of finding a critique exchange buddy or group. And also setting some reading goals, too. Is this too much?

Lori-

It may be helpful if you put a timeline on your second and third goals. That may be why it may feel like too much. For instance, are you expecting to complete all that in a month or a week or a year? And which do you want to do first.

Writing groups are wonderful. I have been part of one for a few years now and it is a great fit for me. You want to try them out and make sure they fit for you because there are so many ways that a writing group can work.

As for reading, I know many writers who say that if you don't read, you may as well not write so reading is definitely good. But, of course, having something measureable like your ten pages a day expectation that you set for the first goal can make it seem more manageble and not as overwhelming.

Hope that helps.

Melissa

Yes, it helps a lot. When I read, I can't put the book down and it ends up taking up huge chunks of my day--or even the entire day!

What is your writing schedule?

Lori,

I wish I had a better writing schedule but I do try and make sure that I get all my Bella articles done by Saturday night and have been successfully doing that since July. I also am setting a mini goal this month to rewrite a completed novel draft that I finished in the National Novel Writers Month event this past November. I found that I did a really good job of what Heater Sellers calls the "butt in chair" technique when I had a goal for the month and hopefully can re-create that for February. I also had tried to read at least a novel every two weeks since I graduated last Spring. Right now I am reading Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead" which is a pretty thick book, but absolutely engaging and thought provoking. I try to read fiction regularly beacuse I gives me something to strive for and exposes me to other writer's techniques.

Melissa