A few years back I had a short bout of Writer’s Procrastination. This is different from Writer’s Block because I wasn’t blocked. I had a ton to write and no umph to write it. I was lucky enough to find a book by Jenna Glatzer titled Outwitting Writer’s Block and Other Problems of Pen http://www.amazon.com/Outwitting-Writers-Block-Other-Problems/dp/B001QCX9FY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1292558177&sr=8-1, it’s a book I highly recommend. There’s a section about goal setting in the book that I love. She suggests more than just yearly and monthly goals, she talks about weekly objectives to keep you motivated and focused.
Business and organizational professionals are forever extolling the need for writing down goals or tasks that you can accomplish on a monthly, weekly, and daily basis. Writing down these goals allows you to create a plan of action, keep you focused, see the results, and provide a strategy for achieving your writing goals. We are all familiar with New Year Resolutions or goals. Ever wonder why you rarely meet those goals at year’s end? It’s because we usually fail to create specific, measurable achievable, realistic and targeted goals, SMART goals for short.
1. Define your goal(s).
Write down things that you can realistically achieve in a given time frame. For goals to work; they need to have targets. An example of a SMART goal is: “I will write 1,000 words a week on my 50k word romance novel, Soulmate, and have it completed by 1 April 2011.”
2. Determine what tasks are necessary to achieve your goal(s).
Going back to my last post about creating a Book Production Schedule, take that of list of thing you know you have to accomplish for each book. This would be things like outlining the book, writing the book, revising, editing, and proofreading the book, sending it out for feedback from beta readers and editors, getting cover art, doing the layout and book design, interviews, permissions to use copyrighted material, marketing, pictures, promoting and marketing, research, etc.
3. Organize the tasks and develop a strategic plan.
Start with your bigger goals and break them down into manageable chunks of three-year, one-year, monthly, weekly, and daily goals. The smaller your tasks the easier it is for you to accomplish.
4. Set yourself up for success by creating a practical plan.
If you have a full-time job, two small children, and a dog to care for, it may be difficult to fit in three hours of writing each day. Make sure your plan suits your lifestyle. If you write one hour a day (after the kids go to bed), five times a week, or five hours one day a week (on Sunday when the kids are at grandma’s house) that’s five pages of writing each week; within a year you will have completed a 250-page book.
So this brings us to the end. I wish you all good luck on your Writing business plans. If you have anything to add, comment below.
The Writer’s Business Plan: An Introduction
The Writer’s Business Plan: Parts of the Writer’s Business Plan
The Writer’s Business Plan: Creating a Budget
Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors 