As you may know from previous posts, I gave myself a strict deadline for when I wanted to publish my most recent novel, The Highlander's Curse. I'm one of those crazies who, once I have a goal in mind, I'll do practically anything to achieve it. That piece of my soul that dies along with a failed goal is a lot more than I like to deal with, so I'm pretty adamant about finishing what I started. This brings me to my point (and as you may gave guessed, folks, the subject of this post).
Don't spread yourself too thin.
Having goals is a good thing. A great thing, in fact. But you should be smart about it. If you just started writing a book, and you're planning on it being close to 100K when it's done, don't set your goal to have the sucker finished in one month. Unless you're some kind of rock star who can crank out a crap ton of words every day and you don't need to edit it, then yeah, shoot for it. But I'm warning you, you're going to be in recovery-mode for a heck of a lot longer than you might think. Yes, I wore myself out. I'm currently in that dreaded funk authors call writer's block, only it isn't just affecting my writing. It's affecting everything. I have...mental-function block. I can't write, I don't want to read, heck, most of the time I don't even watch TV, I just stare at the pretty pictures flashing on the screen as my mind wanders over...well, nothing. It just wants rest!
So, what do I suggest?
I knew you'd ask. I'm psychic like that. And before you say "Ah-ha!" because I had enough mental know-how function to write this post, please note that this has taken weeks to formulate. ;)
Okay, on with my advice...
Please, just please, don't push yourself as hard as I did. Don't commit to that end goal without thinking through and planning out your smaller goals. Look at your normal productivity and factor in the fact that you can't (and seriously don't want to) shut out the entire world so you can write your book. Do you write 1,000 words a day? Awesome, your maximum goal for a week should be 7,000 words, and that's if you're planning to spend some time with your novel every single day. More than likely you won't be able to give that much love to your characters story, so give yourself some cushion. Maybe you could write 14,000 words in two weeks, but why not make a more manageable goal of 10,000 words in two weeks. If you surpass that 10,000 or even 14,000 words in that two weeks, then you have my permission to consider yourself a rock star until it's time to kick it in gear for your next goal. Alright, two week goal set? What's your month goal? Or, if you want to make smaller goals, why not set weekly ones? All I'm saying is, come up with your smaller goals and hold yourself to them. If you slack some days, you'll know what you need to make up later to keep yourself on track. And if you keep on track with your smaller goals, then nothing should keep you from reaching that long-term goal and completing your novel.
That was the end of my post, I just thought I'd add my funniest typo for this post: I kept typing "goat" in instead of "goal." If any sneak through, you get the gist.
