Have you ever promised yourself to accomplish your writing goals this time around? To finish writing your book within the next month, only for the days to fly by and you to realize you’re no closer than you were weeks ago?
Have you ever wanted to make progress with your story, but felt unsure about how to give yourself a reasonable goal–and how to make sure to meet that goal?
I have.
That’s why today we’re going to discuss how to set writing goals you can actually accomplish. I’ve also created a goals sheet to help you with this process, and you can get it for FREE by joining my newsletter.
How to Find Time
Have you ever wanted to write but felt too busy? If only you could find extra time to write.
The truth is, you won’t. If there was a way to just happen upon a few extra hours of time, we wouldn’t need goals and deadlines.
Instead, we need to make time.
If writing is important to us, then we need to set aside time in our schedule specifically for writing. This may mean watching less television or scrolling through fewer social media posts. It may mean going to bed 15 minutes later and using that 15 minutes to write. It may mean writing during lunch break, while waiting in line, or on the bus.
This is my first task for you.
First, ask yourself if writing is important to you. Since you’re reading this, I’m guessing it is. If that’s the case, then challenge yourself to set aside 15 minutes to write. You may find that once you carve out those first few minutes, it will become easier to carve out a few more.
How Much Can You Actually Write?
Now that we know how to make the time for writing, how much can you actually write in one week?
Everyone’s schedules look different. Some of us can easily write 1,000 words in a day, while some of us are lucky to get 200. Daily word counts will also look different when your goal is to edit versus when your goal is to write the first draft.
Take a week and push yourself to write as much as you can. Think of it as a trial period. Keep track of how much you write each day, as well as what locations and times of day you wrote. At the end of this trial period, you’ll know exactly how many words you can write on a good day, how many you can write on a bad day, and whether there’s a certain location or time that helps you write better.
Now, with the information from your trial period, you can figure out a realistic time frame for your writing goals. For example, if you wrote between 900-1,000 words per day during your trial period, then you know that over the course of a month, you can write 27,000-30,000 words. If your goal is to write 60,000 words, you’ll need two months at this pace. If you try to force yourself to write all 60,000 words in only one month, you’ll likely burn yourself out, miss your target, and feel disappointed.
That’s the last thing we want. The purpose of this trial period is to know how much you can realistically do, so you can set writing goals you can actually accomplish.
The Why
Before you cross the starting line, take a moment to write out WHY this goal is important to you. There is a section for this in my free worksheet, but if you opt not to use that, write it on a sticky note or an index card and place it somewhere you can see while you’re writing.
Why do you want to write this story? Why does it matter to you?
I write because I want people to feel inspired by the fictional heroes I’ve created. Because I want to share my struggles and the things I’ve learned in a fantastical way. Because I love the way books can capture readers’ hearts and imaginations by arranging words in certain ways to invoke feelings.
Why do you write?Having your why down on paper will serve as a reminder for why you’re doing this when the going gets tough. It can help sustain your motivation on your journey to accomplish your goal.
Push Yourself
It’s important that we don’t let ourselves make excuses. Excuses just give us a reason to not try harder.
Through this process, we need to be honest with ourselves. If we know we can write 500 words in a day, but we’re only writing 100, we can make excuses for ourselves, saying that we’re tired or we’re just not feeling it.
Or we can push ourselves.
Pushing ourselves is always harder, but it’s always more rewarding. It feels good to look back at all the words we wrote and say, “I did that.”
Even if our work feels subpar, having words on the page is better than having a blank page. You can’t edit a blank page. As long as we’re getting words down, we can improve them. But without anything on the page, we have nothing to improve upon. All we have is a concept floating around in our imagination.
No matter what, we must keep writing.
If you’d like more about how to conquer writer’s block for good, check out this post.
Emergency Days
Sometimes, life happens. Cars break down, people catch the flu.
If we’re unprepared, unexpected incidents can completely derail our progress. But we won’t be unprepared, because we’ll have emergency days scheduled into our goal.
For each month in your writing goals, add 1-2 emergency days. When you say your goal is to write 30,000 words in 30 days, this really means that your goal is to write 30,000 words in 28 days, with a buffer of 2 days.
If something does happen, you have a little breathing room to adapt and deal with whatever arises.
If nothing unexpected happens, you have 2 extra days to push yourself a little further. Or you can celebrate finishing your goal 2 days early.
Accountability for Your Writing Goals
Sometimes it’s enough to hold yourself accountable, but more often, it’s better to have someone to keep you in check.
Explain your goal to someone you trust and ask them to check in with you every week, to make sure you’re still on target. You may also want to let your other friends and family know what you’re trying to accomplish, so they understand that your writing time is important.
And, when you do accomplish your writing goals, give yourself a reward. You did something amazing, so you deserve to celebrate! Go out for ice cream or kick back and watch your favorite movie. Do something that you enjoy.
Decide what your reward will be when you start, and the thought of earning your reward can give you more incentive to keep pushing.
What’s your writing goal?
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