"How's your writing going?"
We who wish to be writers ask each other that question. But we don't always know how to answer - especially if we don't know what our writing goals are.
Goals used to feel uncomfortable and daunting to me - probably because I so rarely fulfilled them. But I haven’t completely given up. Instead I’ve been noticing what works and what doesn’t work for me.
For example, yearly goals might be inspirational and lofty, but they may end up being too ambitious and not very sustainable.
Monthly goals work better for me. A month is long enough to build some momentum, but short enough to not fizzle.
When it comes to measuring my progress and assessing how I’m doing, weekly works best for me. A week is short enough to experiment a bit with lists or charts. If it feels clunky after the first week, I can tweak my system and change things up a bit for the next week.
I'm not sure it matters so much what my plan is, but it seems to matter a lot that I have one. The very first step toward reaching a goal is to HAVE one.
I know what you mean. We have to know our abilities and limitations, and work with them rather than trying to do things the way others may be saying we should. I have ADD, which I didn't discover till I was around 50. One of the hardest things for me is to do anything consistently on a daily basis. I have established one daily habit, and that is reading from Spurgeon's Morning & Evening, and Chambers' My Utmost for His Highest. I do it first thing in the morning. But writing? SO hard to do consistently. Hence I have a love/hate relationship with NaNoWriMo. I hate feeling like I HAVE to write each day, yet I love that I CAN take time to do so without feeling guilty. For me, the best way is usually not to push myself to do something at a certain time every day, but to see the week as a whole, and what I want to accomplish during that longer time frame.
ReplyDeleteYes, we have to try stuff out and find out what works for us. Thanks for taking time to comment here. Good luck with NaNoWriMo.
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