How I Plan My Writing Year

It's January. We're likely still making goals for the year, hoping that this will be the year that everything comes together like we always dreamed it would. You know your girl's all about making goals. That's just how I am. I'm always wanting to make sure each year matters, so make goals in order to make it all happen.

Goals are great, but they're useless if you don't have a strategy to reach them. You can dream all the live long day, but if you don't have any realistic steps to make them become a reality, that's all they ever will be- dreams.

Since I know reaching goals can be quite scary, I thought I might show y'all how I set myself up for success last year and how I hope to reach my goals for 2019.

~Yearly goals~

This is where I dream big. I jot down things that I know aren't horrifically far out of reach, but are big enough to make a difference. 

As you saw in my post last week, I have about 7 main writing goals. That's a lot, but I'm confident I'll reach most of them and be pretty close on others.

For this post, I'm going to take my biggest one, reaching draft 8 of The Dawn of a Hero, and use that as an example. 

~Monthly goals~

I now look at all of my goals and try to decide how many months I need to dedicate to each of them. I also try to see if I can work on more than one of them at a time, like writing 100 words of Ships, Secrets, and Survivors a day along with whatever project I'm working on or outlining one story and first drafting another. 

I also like to keep in mind when the NaNo events take place. These are super important months for my writing life, as I'll probably be stretching myself a lot during those times. I usually like to use them as buffers between my major edits, where I get a lot of work done on my other projects. 

Then I pull up a Word doc and start making goals for each month, writing out what I'd like to do during that time. This is where I start making a battle plan for reaching my goals. I usually like to have until June planned (with the exception of November. That is always allocated to NaNoWriMo), but a lot of the times, things change so much that I need to keep the rest of the months pretty clear in case I don't reach some of these. 

For tDoaH, I need to complete three drafts to reach my goal. It'll probably take one month of active work per draft now that I have a more polished story, plus some months in between for editors and beta readers to look over it and make suggestions. So I allocated January, May, and probably August/September to edit it, while having the other months set aside to send it to readers and give them time to write up their notes while I work on other things. 

This is usually how my doc looks

I frequently check this list and make modifications if I'm not as on track as I thought I would be. Once I get closer to June, I then will plan out the rest of the months of the year.

It's important for me to always have this close at hand so I can remind myself of what I need to focus on at any given moment. This helps me prioritize my tasks. It also helps me silence the nagging from my other WIPs because I know I have time set aside for them as well and I'll get to them in a bit. 

~Weekly goals~

Now I have my monthly goals. Great. Things aren't quite as overwhelming, but I still need to figure out how much work I need to do to make these steps happen. This is where weekly goals comes in. Each week, I write down a few things I want to accomplish by Friday. This is where realism starts playing a role in my goal setting. The other steps involve more dreaming and hoping, but this is when I need to really look at what my schedule will allow. Some weeks I have plenty of time to dedicate to my writing. Others, I might be driving all over the countryside and I won't have a lot of time. I need to know this in advance and plan accordingly. 

So let's say I want to finish a draft of tDoaH that month. One of my weekly goals might be to read through the draft and make lots of notes. Another might be to edit up to a certain page number or chapter by Friday. Whatever it is, I do my best to make sure it's realistic for the week ahead, but will also make significant progress on my goals. 

~Daily goals~

This is where fun stuff happens. This is the gritty part of planning because you're finally getting real with yourself and acknowledging what it will take to make your dreams become a reality. It's not the dreaming that makes your goals happen. It's the daily getting up and getting to work that makes it happen. 

For this step, I usually jot down what I want to accomplish the next day. I like to plan out my next day in the afternoon. I do this for a couple of reasons. 1. It gets me motivated to get out of bed because I know there's something waiting for me in the day. 2. If I have everything written down, then I don't usually stress about forgetting anything I need to do. I know my to-do list will be waiting for me when I get to my office.

I like to have no more than three big things to do each day. This includes outings, school, and writing. That's usually all I have time and energy for.

So a day might look like this for me:

1. Read one chapter of study book and answer study questions
2. Read x amount of pages of tDoaH and make revision notes
3. Write a blog post

As you can see, I've set a goal for the day on how many pages I want to read through on my former draft. This way I'm making progress towards my big goal of finishing this draft.

Now, honestly, there are days where I'm not going to be able to get as much done as I'd like or planned, but I always strive to at least get close. Consistency is how goals are going to happen, not by relying on the "all or nothing" mentality. So let's say I plan to read 50 pages, but the day goes haywire and I only read 20-30 pages. That's still progress towards my goal. But if I throw in the towel because I know I won't reach 50, then I'm not making progress and my goals are less likely to become reality.

If something like this happens, I just try to make it up on days where I'm not so busy. Basically how I survived NaNoWriMo this past year.

~Quick checklist for you~

1. Make your goals for the year. Don't be afraid of dreaming big.

2. Break it down into monthly goals. Review and revise these often.

3. Select a good sized chunk of work for each week of that month. Be realistic, but dedicated.

4. Divide that weekly goal into daily tasks. Make progress, even if it's not as much as you wanted. 

And voila! You are set up to for success! Now go forth and conquer those amazing goals you have. 

I hope this post was helpful to you in reaching your goals. It doesn't matter how many goals you have for the year. You can have a lot or a few. Either way, it's so important that you also have a plan on how you're going to reach those goals. 

Remember, it's the daily grind that gets you places. Show up as often as you can and put in the work. It's okay if not every day is 100%. Consistency's got your back. Just keep showing up and progress will happen. 

Now to y'all. What big goals are you nervous about this year? How do you plan on reaching them without ripping all your hair out? What techniques are you hoping to incorporate into your lifestyle that will better help you with your goals?