What’s your writing goal for 2012?

Where do you want to go and when do you want to get there?

Most people ask them­selves those ques­tions be­fore head­ing out on a trip. I also ask them when I’m writ­ing a book.

Completing a book re­quires a huge com­mit­ment of time and en­ergy. If I don’t have a map of where I’m go­ing and when I want to ar­rive, the pro­ject can stretch on into in­fin­ity. That’s scary.

So I set goals.

It took me a while to fig­ure out what a goal is. I want to write a book and have it pub­lished is not a goal, that’s a dream.

A real goal goes some­thing like this: I want to com­plete a 60,000 word ma­nu­script by August 31, edit and re­vise it by December 31 and send it to a publisher/​agent by January 1. In or­der to ac­com­plish this I will work on my book for two hours every Saturday and Sunday.

Now that’s scary too. But it also gives you a clear idea of what you need to do.

However, sit­ting down at the com­puter know­ing you in­tend to write 60,000 words is enough to give any­one writer’s block. So what I do is break the pro­ject down into smal­ler in­cre­ments, say so many words or chapters each month.

I try to be reas­on­able about what I can ac­com­plish, yet push my­self a bit too. Every month or so, I re­view what I’ve done. To be per­fectly hon­est, I nev­er meet my self-im­posed dead­lines. But they keep me on track and mo­tiv­ate me to try harder.

Most folks lead busy lives and fre­quently have to give some­thing up in or­der to cre­ate writ­ing time and achieve their goals. That might in­volve set­ting the alarm an hour earli­er each morn­ing, hav­ing a writ­ing lunch break or draft­ing your ma­nu­script in the laun­dro­mat while wait­ing for your clothes to spin dry.  Many writers – in­clud­ing me – don’t watch tele­vi­sion and lim­it their email and so­cial me­dia time.

But simply hav­ing a goal isn’t al­ways enough. To be really ef­fect­ive ex­perts say you should write your goal down, make a com­mit­ment by telling it to someone and to also be ac­count­able to someone.

It’s early January, the time of year when many people make res­ol­u­tions and set goals. Have you giv­en any thought to where you want to be in your writ­ing jour­ney by the end of the year?