Novel Goal

I Started Today!

I sat down this morning knowing exactly what I was going to write about. Well, sort of. And never got to it but made my page count plus some so I'm happy.

I'll Have a Completed Manuscript in One Year

Well, I haven't even started (restarted) my novel, and here I go breaking the rules already. My goal was to write three pages a day. My focus was to be on process, not product.

And now I say I'm going to have a completed manuscript in one year.

Well, if I don't say it, I won't have it. I want to attend next year's Christian Writer's Conference in N.C. I will have a manuscript in hand. I will. Even if it isn't worth showing to anyone.

That is part of my goal, and now I'm making it scary....

Steadily she writes on, 500 words a day....

Three days ago Rebecca Laffar-Smith posted her goal (see sidebar) and she's writing even more than that each night! Congratulations (and great envy). You inspire me!

How to Set Your Writing Goal

We all have to start somewhere -- and someday. Here's how to set your writing goal.

Figure out when you start and how much you'll do every day. That's all. Post it here, if you want to write along with me, and I'll figure out how to put you and your goals in the sidebar thingie. (Good way to get a link!)

The time has come. Today I commit to my writing goal. I will start my novel on October 15 because that seems like a long time away (it isn't) and it's a Monday. It used to be payday, too, when I was at the ad agency. Good things happen on the Ides, unless you are Caesar.

I will be a size 8 again by then, too. (Just kidding. Writing a novel's enough pressure.)

I will write three pages a day seven days a week. They will not be good pages. There is no pressure to write anything or to even imagine that anyone will ever, ever see it. Butt goes in chair, three pages come out.

I get to adjust this goal if it kills me.

Depending on how it's going, I might even do NaNoWriMo. (It also depends on how much paying work I have at the time....)

What about you?

This blog is for the part of you who wants to write

Why not combine Novel Goal and Novel Struggles?

First, a quotation from Maria Irene Fornes, a playwright:

"You must always keep changing your process. Because there are two of you, one who wants to write and one who doesn't. The one who wants to write has to keep fooling the one who doesn't."

This blog is for the one of you who wants to write. The other (Novel Struggles) is for the one who doesn't. Or maybe I should say, to help the one who wants to write figure out how to fool the one who doesn't.

We'll celebrate here and push our goals and dreams. We'll whine there. In both places, we'll try to outrun the one who doesn't want to write.

Maybe I'll end up combining the two, but my initial vision is that here is pure hope (and progress) and there is "How do I crawl back up onto the road?"

Then we get back onto the road and keep going. Forward, forward, forward. One baby step at a time.

Public humiliation is a great motivator

They say that if you want to achieve something, you need to set a goal. I want to write a novel so very badly that I can't possibly even start or try to do it. I need a goal. And I need to announce it to the world. Public humiliation is a great motivator.

Is their a psychiatric term for "fear of writing a bad novel when I really just absolutely have to write a good one"?

Term for it or not, that's what I've got. I haven't worked on my novel in so long I've forgotten what it's about. So, I've started this blog to publicly proclaim the various goals it takes to write a novel. The babysteps along the way.

Do you have a novel in you that's screaming NOT to get out? Join me. Say what you're going to do here, and then, JUST DO IT. You make me do it and I'll make you do it.

Goal adjustment is allowed. Failure is allowed. Public humiliation is allowed (not really -- just what you impose on yourself). But not trying is not allowed.

I've got to give my goals some thought. I think I'm going to give myself a month or so to get my head together on this novel. I won't be outlining, because that is death to my work. I won't be thinking of the ending, because I want to write to find out what happens next. But, dear writer buddy, I do need a concept and an idea of who's in the cast of characters and what is their Deep Yearning. I don't want to kill that many trees trying to find out who's the main character and what does he/she want.

Then, after a month or so of brainstorming, I'm going to start out small. About three pages a day doesn't sound too daunting, does it? That's about the size of my grocery list.

I also need to figure out exactly how this blog goal thing is going to work. I've got a companion blog up, www.NovelStruggles.com, where I'm going to whine (and dear writer buddy, you can too). Here I'm going to try to stay goal-oriented and positive.

I'm also thinking of putting up www.NovelProgress.com, where we track our accomplishments. The nitty gritty. The "wrote my three pages today and decided to quit my day job" stuff. I have some sorting out to do. Suggestions are welcome.

Post your goals in the comments section. If I figure out how to do it (I think I already know), I'll put your name, your pen name or your blog link in a side-bar list with your goal posted. That way it will be there for the whole world to see. How's that for pressure?

We may never be rich or famous, (or we may be), but we'll certainly be novelists. All we have to do is write that novel. One page at a time.