Happy 2016: Time to Evaluate Our Goals

Issue #18 January 2016

Evaluate Last Year’s Goals

If you remember last year’s January issue of The Prodigal Writer, you know that we need to constantly stay on top of our long-term goals by setting mid-term and short-term goals, then checking ourselves to make sure we’re staying on track. As you look at your goals from last year, mark down what you actually accomplished in one column. In the next column determine whether your goals were 1) unrealistic, 2) too difficult to achieve and in need of modification or 3) just right and worthwhile continuing.

Here are the goals I set last year and my evaluation of them. Notice that I’ve made notes about each of my goals before deciding on which goals to select for 2016.

	2015 Goals	Actual Accomplishment
Must Read Must See Books and Movies	6 blog entries	4 blog entries, updated keywords and title
Prodigal Writer	4 blog entries	4 blog entries, updated keywords and title
Contributors’ Corner Newsletter	12 newsletter	Only 4 entries – this was connected to my website, which was cancelled
	Submit 12 stories/essays	Submitted 5 stories; 12 stories was too many in light of the editing and writing for my novels
Icy Thoughts Book 2	Write 4,000 words per week on Book 2	Wrote 32,000 words, 4,000 words per weeks MIGHT have been feasible IF other life issues hadn’t come up
Find & Use Editing Service	Contact 2 editing service per month until finding the best match	Contacted 4 different editing services to find out it would cost $2000 to get my book edited-can’t afford
Have a new book cover created	Contact Arts Alliance to find a suitable illustrator	Tried to contact, but no response
Education	Complete another course in marketing	Took How to Sell a Truckload of books on Amazon, Book Launch Toolkit, read numerous articles on how to write a synopsis and how to write a letter to agents.
Apply the Launch Your Ebook principals to promote A Long Winter’s Night AFTER completing the goals for it below		NONE
Author Facebook Page	1 entry per week, either from the blogs, the website or something new	NONE Apparently this is an area of weakness which requires extra work…and study
Character Facebook Page	1 entry per week entered as a diary or journal	NONE – removed from Facebook due to awkwardness
Author LinkedIn Page	NONE	NONE Apparently this is an area of weakness which requires extra work…and study
Author Website	Maintain weekly updates on the author website via the blogs or new info on the home page	NONE – lost website due financial challenges
Write Synopsis		Read about and wrote synopsis
Compose Letter to Agents		Read about and wrote letter to agents
Contact Possible Agents		Wrote and sent letters to 3 agents

As you can see, I accomplished some goals, but not others. This is a natural part of the process and, if you’re seeing the same pattern in your own goal setting-accomplishment process…don’t give up. It takes stamina to reach for the stars and even NASA didn’t make it on the first attempt!

As you can see, I accomplished some goals, but not others. This is a natural part of the process and, if you’re seeing the same pattern in your own goal setting-accomplishment process…don’t give up. It takes stamina to reach for the stars and even NASA didn’t make it on the first attempt!

The next step, of course, is to set your goals for 2016 and break them into monthly goals to be accomplished. This is basically your “to do” list for this year. I like to enter these on my Google Calendar with alerts to keep me on track. If you have another tracking method, that’s fine. Just don’t let yourself fall too far behind or you could get discouraged about actually gaining recognition with your writing.

Goals for 2016	Monthly
Write 6 reviews for The Dystopian Reviewer	Read a book every other month, then review the review for publication: February, April, June, August, October, December
Write 4 blogs for The Goal-Focused Writer	Write blogs for publication: January, April, August, December (remember that the writing must be done the month before the publication date)
Develop and push Goal-Focused Writers’ group, writing 6 blogs, alternating months with The Goal-Focused Writer	Read a book every other month, then review the review for publication: February, April, June, August, October, December
Submit 6 stories/essays	Write/edit on new story every other month for publication: February, April, June, August, October, December
Write 90,000 words	Write 7,500
Create book cover myself for each of the four parts of LWN	Created cover for Part 1 in December; create covers for Part 2, 3 and 4 before one month trial of Photoshop ends
Continue reading and applying marketing information
Launch all four parts of LWN:	Part 1 in February Part 2 in April Part 3 in June Part 4 in August
Create and promote new author web page by February
Rewrite and improve synopsis
Rewrite and improve letter
Send out to 6 agents every two months

  

So let's look at some of the specific ways to accomplish our goals.

Change is Good

I taught English at a local technical school where the motto was “change is good.” It used to exacerbate me because not ALL change is good. Change is only good if it leads to improvement. After hours of reading and research, I decided changes needed to be made to improve my novel’s presence on Amazon. But more than that, I knew I had to make my blogs more accessible, too. Since this blog is focused on goals, I’ve renamed it to The Goal-Focused Writer. We’ll still discuss the steps we need to take as writers to achieve publication… and hopefully notoriety, but those steps can also be applied to accomplishing any goal. 

Re-education

Among the steps to launching any new career path, whether it’s writing or engineering, re-education in the subject area is number one on the TO DO list. That may involve traditional college to improve your writing, but it also means a lot of research and reading on your own. Some of the reading needs to be novels by other authors who are writing in your genre. Reading successful writers has immediate rewards. As you analyze the piece for what works for you as a reader and what doesn’t, then apply this analysis to your own writing, you improve your work. My work as a reader for Gemini Magazine, as well as writing book reviews has increased my awareness of the subtle techniques that change a mediocre novel into a really good one. This is the easy part because it’s right up our proverbial alley.

Other times, though, we must read information which is out of our area of expertise, like how to create promotional material and setting up websites with the correct keywords and linking it to Google Analysis to make sure we’re getting the desired attention. We also have to learn about keywords or tags that word for attracting our desired audience. This type of reading takes time away from our beloved writing and, for we right-brained, creative types, it means working the left side of our brain. When I first began researching how to promote the novel I’d written, I went straight to the horse’s mouth, so to speak. In this case, it was the horses who are professional marketers. I don’t mind telling you, I felt like I’d been stampeded. However, unless you have the good fortune to snag an agent, get a publisher’s attention or have the money to hire a marketing team, it’s absolutely necessary. Accomplishing goals, like getting older, isn’t for sissies.

Luckily, we don’t need to rely solely on marketers for information. Other writers have paved the way for us with FREE easy-to-assimilate directions. One of those writers is Penny C. Sansevieri. Her book, How to Sell Your Book by the Truckload on Amazon, is a must read for any author self-publishing on Amazon. The language is clear and concise and there’s no technobabble to send us in a thousand directions at once. There is, however, a great deal of usable information. So keep your notepad and your TO DO list ready. I’m only halfway through the book and I’ve already learned a great deal about how to improve my keywords and ranking on Amazon. More importantly, I’ve gained the confidence I needed to release of the second, “new and improved,” version of my novel, A Long Winter’s Night. There’s a little more work to accomplish before the new book launch, but I’m well-armed with understanding now. When I finished reading her book, I changed the name of both my blogs. I already explained the change for this blog above. But I also changes my book reviewing blog, Must Read, Must See Novels and Movies, to a more focused title. The Dystopian Reviewer will include a new book review by January. The reviews will still focus on my favorite genre, but they will include other related books as well. Another excellent source of information is Kimberley Grabas’ (Your Writer Platform) and Joel Friedlander’s (The Book Designer) Book Launch Toolkit. While their book feels a little overwhelming, it still has many great suggestions. They offered on online workshop, which included a PDF of the book and a ton of worksheets to help you stay organized.

If at First You Don’t Succeed…

In last quarter’s issue, I told you how I struggled with writing the synopsis for A Long Winter’s Night so I could send it out to literary agents. I chose three agents and simultaneously sent the query letter and synopsis to them. Of the three, only one auto-responded to let me know they’d received the query and later they told me that we weren’t a good match. That’s fine. I read enough to know that this process takes time and, since I’m a rhinoceros (reread the January 2014, Issue 10, Do You Have Thick Skin to remind you what this means) I’m ready to take the hits and keep charging.

The next step is to re-visit my query letter and synopsis, edit them again, select another set of literary agents to submit them to, and continue working while I wait for a response. This is the heart of publication: not giving up, not surrendering to the self-doubt and self-pity that can accompany rejection. Keep moving forward!

Don’t forget to join us at the Contributors’ Corner for insights about writing and to receive feedback on your pre-published work. We’re all here to help one another grow as writers. Until next quarter, live well, love fully and write with all your heart!