Writing Goals 2012 (And How I'm Planning To Reach Them)

Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything.
Napoleon Hill

Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.
Stephen A. Brennan

Without goals, and plans to reach them, you are like a ship that has set sail with no destination.
Fitzhugh Dodson

Goals are dreams with deadlines.
Diana Scharf Hunt

(Instead of the regular Friday Art & History Feature, I wanted to share my goals for the new year with you)

It's that time of the year again. Wait, already? Yep, the time of the year to take stock in what was achieved this year and to make plans, resolutions and goals for the next one. As every year, this one had its ups and downs. The highlights, as far as my writing is concerned, was signing with the awesome Jennifer Mishler and Frances Black of Literary Counsel. My writing partner Tina Moss and I couldn't be happier about that.
Tina and I also started on the sequel, book 2 in the Keys Series.

I started an individual project (as has Tina) but more about that in the new year's goals.


I also feel a sense of accomplishment  about participating (and finishing!) the NaBloPoMo challenge (National Blog Posting Month) in November, in which I had to do a post a day for a month.

So what's ahead?

My writing goals for 2012 are quiet ambitious, and I'm going to start the year with the sense of optimism that all of these goals can be reached successfully. So here's the list of the goals and how I plan to achieve them.

1. Finishing my WIP. It is very important to me to finish my novel within 6 months. It will be a challenge but a welcomed one. In order to do this, I will change my method of writing a bit. 1) I will start making brief outlines of each chapter to have an idea of what I want to include in the chapter and the general direction it will take. This has proved to be very helpful when I work with Tina (my writing partner) on our Keys Series. When working on my individual project, I tend to just sit down and write, but that is not always an optimal way of doing it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Making an outline of chapters assures that I can always sit down and know what to write (even if it's in more general terms).

I'm also going to be more diligent about keeping the smaller goals of a certain amount of time spent writing a day/a week and/or a certain amount of words written a day/a week, etc.. Hopefully, there will be a very visible rise in both the time spent writing and the words written in the beginning of the year vs. the end. To accomplish this, I will experiment with a few different methodologies and see what works the best for me. I'll be tracking this experimentation and the results in blog posts throughout the year.

2. Finishing book #2 in the Keys Series with Tina Moss. I love the process we've established while working on book 1. We put our heads together - and sometimes bump them - and we divide up chapters and hash them out. Then we write them and come back together to read over them, then edit each others chapters. Lots of good ideas and good times ensues.

3. Keeping up with the blog post schedule and expanding and developing the blog further. I would like to do another months or two of NaBloPoMo challenge. During the rest of the months, I will be happy posting 3-4 posts a week. I would like to have my features written in advance and be ready to posted when the time comes. These features are Writer Wednesday Flash Fiction and Friday Art & History Feature. I also plan to have a collection of articles on writing that I can use whenever I need to have a post up but don't have time to write it that day. This will allow me to always keep a reserve of articles and keep up with the blog posts even when I'm focusing on other work and cannot devote a lot of time to the blog. It is my intention for my blog posts to inspire and motivate other writers.

These are the major writing goals I'm setting for myself in the new year. On top of the writing goals, here are a couple of non-writing goals:

1) I'm starting to train for my second black belt degree and am hoping to test sometime during the next year.
2) During the next year, I would like to start a couple of campaigns to raise money for the organizations that work for preservation of big cats and of wolves. Stop by the blog in the next few weeks for more information on this projects. 

Check out Failure...Use it (On Management of Goals and Plans).

Share your writing (or non-writing) goals and how you plan to reach them. How do you motivate yourself and what advice do you have for motivating other writers?

Man is a goal seeking animal. His life only has meaning if he is reaching out and striving for his goals.
Aristotle