The Art of Setting Goals

For me, writing is a major part goal setting. I don't tend to set goals (or meet said goals) for anything else but writing (and I rarely meet writing goals, either). Somehow, setting a goal makes me more inclined to work rather than procrastinate and just generally makes me feel good about myself.

Right now, my goal for Eventide is to have the draft (I can hardly call it a first draft anymore, since I stopped halfway through what I was calling the first draft, cut 40,000 words, and started writing again) done by Christmas break.

Now, chances are this goal will not be achieved. I've set many many similar goals for Eventide and have yet to actually complete any draft of it. Now I usually end up making major plot changes that require cutting massive amounts of words and heading back towards the beginning of the story (it's probably the fourth time I've backtracked to chapter two in this thing). But I'm really going to push to make this goal this time! Really truly I will!

Mostly because I want to be able to spend my extraordinarily long Christmas break editing like a madwoman. And this is mostly because then I can print happy copies of freshly edited chapters and get people I know beta reading for me.

-An important side note! Beta reading is when you have someone read your novel and do whatever level of editing you desire them to do. For me, it will mostly be for content (and any glaring grammatical issues).-

Then, after my beta readers tear it up I'll edit again! Then have people beta again! Then edit again! Then more beta! And so on and so forth until it's PERFECT.

Well, okay, not perfect, but until I'm satisfied with it. Then I plan on querying and querying and querying until I find myself an agent/publisher and then get Eventide published and made a best seller and become fabulously wealthy.

Alright, that's a litte farfetched. I'd settle for just being published. Heck, I'd settle for just creating something I'm truly proud of.

Anywho. I'm pretty well on track for the goal right now. I'm trying to write at least 1,000 words a day (a tad remniscent of NaNoWriMo, but not nearly as insane). So, if all goes well, I should be finishing up around Christmas break. And since I can often write more than 1,000 words in a day it could hopefully be sooner.

That means, of course, no NaNoWriMo this year. I really want to participate again, but Eventide is my priority.

And that's my rambling about goals. Here's to meeting this one for once.

-Lauren-