Writing Goals for 2012

It doesn't seem like I'm going to have an opportunity to write my full 2012 goals blog that I have in my head. Instead I'm going to try to post several smaller blogs with individual goals that hopefully won't take me as much of a chunk of time to complete, so maybe I can get them done!

First, I'm going to tackle my writing goals for the year. After writing my NaNoWriMo post last month I've been seriously thinking about my career as a writer. I believe this is what I am supposed to be, so I need to make it a priority. Even right now, when my life is seemingly completely consumed by my young children, I can make time to write. I have decided several things. First, I will expect and plan for writing time each day. It is extremely surprising how much I can get done in an hour a day! It has been very exciting to see my story moving forward. Second, I will attempt to complete 20,000 words every month. I came very close to that goal in November, so I thought it was an achievable yet difficult goal. It will take some sacrifices and intentionality to actually meet that goal, but it helps me to make sure I'm prioritizing my writing. My third and final writing goal for the year is to finish my first novel. Theoretically that could be done in 3-4 months (which would put the final first draft at 100-120 thousand words). Then I would have to do at least one major rewrite before I could give it to anyone to read and critique and such. So even if it takes me twice as long as I want it to and the rewrite a few months more, I can still get the book completed by the end of the year. So that is what I'm going to do.

I have chosen to do several things to make it more likely that I will accomplish these goals. First, I have downloaded the WriMoDemon app for my iPhone. It allows me to set a goal for the month and it tells me how many words I need to write per day (622 for 30 days gets me to 20k). It will then average my total words and let me know how many words I'm averaging (633 so far). I am also tracking my daily count in a word document because I decided that I wanted to keep that info (and WriMoDemon doesn't keep it at all). Finally, I have told people my goal. By sharing it I have people who will be asking me about it and therefore keeping me accountable. That is super important! :)

Feel free to ask me how it's going. I welcome the accoutability because I  am so excited about you all getting to read the book when it is finished (some of you may even get to be beta readers for me - you know who you are!). Also, just to share my excitement, I have written 5,070 words so far this month! That's 25% of my goal! And there was one day I didn't get to write at all. I didn't let that get me down though. I knew I could make it up. And I did. Yay! Anyway, it's a good thing I decided to split these into several blogs because this ended up really long! (I'm watching the Broncos beat Pittsburg, fyi) :)