Revisiting Goals

Hey All,

A couple months ago when I was in my Olympic swing, I posted about the importance of making goals. November is shaping up to be a goal-setting month for me, so I thought I'd revisit the importance of setting goals by sharing my current goals with you.

First, I've signed up to participate in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). The overall goal here is to write 50,000 words in the month of November, essentially an entire book. When you sign up you're given a page where you can post information about yourself and your book, acquire writing buddies (If you're participating and want to add me as a buddy, I'm under debrastjohn.), and keep track of your word count. Now, in all honesty, I don't know if I'll make the entire 50,000 words. BUT, the concept has encouraged me to set a personal goal of writing something (some part of my mss) every day in the month of November.

You might be saying, big deal, you're a writer, wouldn't you do that anyway?

Nope. There are times I go days, weeks, months without getting anything down. So this has been good for me. And as we're about a third of the way through the month, I can proudly say that so far I'm on track. I've written something on my current manuscript every day this month. Some days I get on the computer. Some days I scribble on a pad of paper and transfer it later. But I'm writing. I'm getting somewhere. My word count is growing (3,929 so far this month). And that's how books get written. So even if I don't make that 50,000 word goal, I'll know that I've accomplished something. And that makes me feel pretty darn good!

Second, I'm following Jeannie Ruesch's series on marketing and promotion over at her Happy Endings Blog. All month long she's posting great tips and strategies for setting goals, promotion, and marketing yourself. If you get the chance, I highly recommend checking it out.

And for now, those goals are enough to keep me going. Baby steps. I always find that if I try to take on too much, nothing gets done. But breaking things down into smaller steps makes things more manageable. I can see my progress, rather than seeing my list of things to do grow larger.

Until next time,

Happy Reading!

Debra

www.debrastjohnromance.com