Farewell, My Friends and Followers
As you know, we are always focusing on our goals and the
actions we must take to achieve them. Evaluating whether or not those actions
are relevant to helping us achieve those goals is of great importance. So once
the goals are set, the actions selected, then evaluate, we must tweak those
actions. Sometimes the activities we’re doing are helping to push us toward our
goals, so we keep those activities. Other times our activities have become a
distraction from the main goal. There are also times when circumstances in our
life have changed and made the once profitable activities impractical. In that
case, we need to drop the activity in order to focus better on achieving the
main goal.
Well, circumstances in my life have changed. Serious family
health issues are demanding more of my time and energy…almost all of it, in
fact. That doesn’t mean I’m going to stop working toward my goal. It does mean
I must evaluate which activities I’m doing are most effective in helping me as
much to achieve the goal of becoming a well-known author.
I have found myself working on too many projects which
consume a great deal of time and energy…distracting me from the goal of writing.
While I have enjoyed sharing my thoughts and ideas in The Goal-Focused Writer, it has not yielded the following I had
hoped for. So this is my farewell to whatever friends and followers read this
blog and again to encourage you to continue evaluating your activities as per
my example. Below is my final published example of tweaking my own goals. I
hope this helps you to tweak yours as well. For those of you who prefer a
visual representation, see the attached PDF.
Original Goals for 2016
Activities That Go
1.
Write four (4) blogs
for The Goal-Focused Writer
Write
blogs for publication (remember that the writing must be done the month before
the publication date): January, April,
July, October
Writing this blog helped me stay focused on my goals, but since it
never gained any kind of following or increased audience, the blog didn’t
promote me as a writer. THIS ACTIVITY
STOPS.
2.
Develop and push Goal-Focused Writers’ group, writing eights
(8) blogs, alternating months with The
Goal-Focused Writer
Write
a private members-only blog for other writers in conjunction with The Goal-Focused Writer blog (offering
free PDF book for joining) and publish: February,
March, May, June, August, September, November, and December.
Since this activity is directly related to the above blog, I will
not pursue my own writing group online, but possibly pursue building one
locally. THIS ACTIVITY STOPS.
3. 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
Just because you CAN do a thing, doesn’t mean you SHOULD do a thing.
Creating my own book covers takes massive amounts of time and an expensive
creative program that I’m not ready to invest in. It is a distraction from my
real goal, which is to write and publish. SO
IT GOES!
Activities That Stay
1. Write
six (6) reviews for The Dystopian
Reviewer
Read
a book every other month, then review the review for publication; offer free
PDF of Sci-Fi Analysis for followers: February,
April, June, August, October, and December.
This is an excellent activity, since it helps me improve my own
writing and lets me know what authors, styles and approaches work well. The
blog has a small following which seems to be growing, therefore promoting my
name as a writer. This activity stays.
2. Submit
six (6) stories/essays to magazine
Write/edit
on new story every other month for publication: February, April, June, August, October, and December.
This is an activity directly related to my major goal, but it’s
one I’ve neglected while pursuing the less-focused activities above, which did not
help me reach my goal. THIS ACTIVITY
STAYS.
3. Write
8,000 per month on new novel (or 2,000 words per week).
This is an absolute MUST DO in order to achieve my goals. SO THIS ACTIVITY STAYS.
4. Rewrite
and improve synopsis
This activity is a MUST
for finding agents and publishers.
5. Rewrite
and improve cover letter
This activity is a MUST
for finding agents and publishers.
6. Send
out to six (6) agents every two months
This activity is a MUST
for finding agents and publishers.
As you can see, it is imperative that your activities…those things you
choose to devote your time and energy to…are important aspects of whether or
not you achieve your end goal. If you’re a writer, your first choice is whether
to self-publish on Amazon, Book Baby or through any of the hundreds of services
that charge you a fee to put your book in print or if you choose the
traditional route of contacting agents and publishers in hopes of a contract. If
you choose the self-publishing route, you’ll be forced to learn how to market
your book and then spend precious hours taking all those little marketing steps
to achieve your book’s success. This what I have been doing for the past two
years, during which time I’ve had odd jobs, my mother had a series of small
strokes, requiring my help, and I had a massive amount of reading in a new
subject to do! I always felt like I was running behind on everything and the
things I did finish didn’t look as well-polished as I would have liked. When my
mother had an acute stroke last month, I knew she needed more of my time than
ever before and that something had to change in my activities. That’s when I
decided to work on publishing though the traditional venues. They take more wait
time for responses, but while you wait, you continue writing. And that’s exactly
what I’ll do.
Setting and Accomplishing Goals
As I end this writers’ blog, let’s review the baby sets we
have to take in order to take the leap of achieving our goals:
1)
Set the goal you want to accomplish.
2)
Establish activities that will lead you to that
goal.
a)
Practice, practice, and practice some more.
b)
Get feedback on your work whenever possible.
c)
Accept that feedback with grace, remember that
the growing requires you to be wrong once in a while. Smile and thank that
person for helping you grow.
d)
Get educated in your field of choice, through
reading or courses.
e)
Find a mentor or be a mentoring, you’ll learn
and grow either way. This is where being part of a writers’ group will really
help!
f)
Network with people in you field of choice.
3)
Revaluate your progress toward your goal
regularly.
4)
Tweak, change, and alter any activities that are
not taking you to the goal you want to achieve or require time away from more
meaningful activities that WILL help you grow.
5)
Believe you can achieve, even when things go
wrong. Only allow yourself a couple of days to mourn any bad luck, then pull
yourself back to focus on your goal.
6)
Repeat these steps frequently until you have
achieved the results you desire.
Good luck, good writing, and thanks for reading my blog. Don’t forget
that Dystopian Reviewer will still be available and keep an eye on
my website: Icy Thoughts for upcoming publications.
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