Ian Dawson's Blog - Posts Tagged "writing-goals"

Deadlines. We have them at work, and our kids have them for school projects, and the government gives us one to pay our taxes. Having a set, definite date to aim for with something major can be a great motivator for getting things done.

But are you setting deadlines for your writing?

Even if you’re not planning to publish or send your work to contest, giving yourself a deadline can be a great way to get things in gear and get the writing done. This milestone can be a moment of celebration and excitement; the novel is done, and I can move forward with my next writing project.

Some people may prefer not to have deadlines. They allow the Muse to decide when they write and when the project is done. That’s all well and good. However, if you want to write a lot and get a lot done and off your To-Do List, I recommend creating deadlines for your projects.

Here are some things to consider when setting deadlines.

Be Reasonable

If you are working on your first novel, setting a deadline of one month maybe a little too intense (unless you’re into that sort of high-octane writing thrill). Creating a reasonable deadline that is manageable but not ridiculous is the key to making the deadline work.

Maybe you plan to have a six-month deadline for your first novel. Then once you’ve seen what you can do with six months, shave a month off for the next one.

I’m sure you’ve seen stories and videos of people who wrote a screenplay in 48 hours or a novel in two weeks, and if you want to aim for that as a personal goal, go for it. But if you have a day job, kids, a family, and other obligations don’t add to your plate writing a 65,000-word novel in a month.

No one wins in that scenario.

Write It Down

It may sound silly, but writing a deadline down in a notebook, a journal, on a calendar, or on a whiteboard where you can see it as a reminder is useful to keep you mindful of the chosen deadline date.

It is better to have it written down than to make a mental note and forget it.

You can also use this as a way to mark smaller milestones on your way to the big deadline by establishing smaller goals in the larger timeline. If your goal is to write a first draft of your novel in six months, breakdown ideally where you want to be in the process at the end of months 1, 3, and 5. Fragmenting the larger goal can help make it less daunting.

Beat the Clock

Let’s say you set a deadline of three months to write a play. Can you finish a day early? A week early? Giving yourself personal competition can be a great motivator. It always feels good to get something done before it’s due, and this is one way to see how much faster you can get the project done before your stated deadline.

Reward Yourself

You finished the novel early! You did it! Give yourself time for a reward. It can be going to a movie, buying a book you wanted, or getting dinner out. This is another great way to incentivize yourself to set and keep your writing deadlines.

In our world of instant gratification, delaying getting what you want by completing a major writing task first can make receiving that reward all the better.

Stay Positive

Life happens. If your deadline has to change or you miss it by a week or two, it’s okay. Keep going and still work to get the project done. The key is the complete the project. While the deadline is nice to have, if things prevent you from writing, sometimes there’s not much you can do.

Stay persistent and keep writing.

Have Fun

Writing should be fun, and getting a writing project done should also be a fun process. Remember that you want to get this novel done to move on to the next one.

Give yourself permission to enjoy the process and the creative aspects of the writing. You’ll be grateful that you did.


Happy Writing, and I’ll see you in two weeks!

Failure. It’s a concept that most people hate, and everyone tries to avoid it in their personal and professional lives. While most of us strive for success, we often do our best to circumvent any situation or outcome that could be seen as us failing at those attempts toward success.

But what if we did the opposite? What if we embraced failure instead of avoiding it? This is the premise of Ryan Leak’s book, Chasing Failure.

Leak presents to us that famous people many see as “overnight successes” actually struggled and grew through a series of failures that made them the person we know today. He makes it clear that the only real pathway to true success is filled with failures. Failure can make us better people and better at ultimately achieving our goals.

Chasing failure is an excellent idea for a New Year’s resolution since it encourages you to go for your goals even if there is the possibility of failure at the start. You’ll never know what you can achieve until you embark on the journey toward your goal, so why not take the opportunity to chase after it? Even if you stumble and fall on the first few tries, Leak explains that those missteps and failures contain valuable lessons that you can use to recalibrate and continue your journey toward your ultimate goal.

The author, Ryan Leak, also uses his personal stories about chasing failure when he tried out for the NBA. The methods he used, the failures he encountered, and the lessons he learned helped make him a better person and more courageous when setting out to achieve future goals.

Chasing Failure is a great book, a quick read. It is filled with encouragement for anyone afraid of the looming specter of failure. Leak’s solution is to laugh in failure’s face and not quit if it happens. Only by failing can one find the strength to succeed.

Grab a copy of Chasing Failure by Ryan Leak and learn more about the author at the link below:

https://www.ryanleak.com/chasingfailure

How can you embrace the concept of chasing failure when it comes to your creative goals in 2023?

Every country has holidays, and most calendars have holidays printed on them. And whether you celebrate them or not, these set-in-stone dates can be a valuable tool to help you set milestones and deadlines for your writing goals.

While it’s easy to say, “I’ll finish my first draft in three months,” what if that date was tied to a holiday on the calendar? So, if you set this goal on January 1, maybe you will have the first draft done by St. Patrick’s Day. Now, you have a target date associated with a major holiday, and you have a built-in reason to celebrate your writing win!

If using holidays isn’t for you, maybe use birthdays or anniversaries of family and friends. Now, you know that you’ll have a draft done on Aunt Trudy’s birthday or when your cousin celebrates their fifth wedding anniversary.

If you want to get crazy, find a site that shows all the unofficial holidays and use one of those dates as a goal. Maybe you National Donut Day, which is Friday, June 2, and grab yourself a donut in celebration of your creative accomplishment.

Here’s a list of unofficial holidays (it’s pretty extensive):

https://anydayguide.com/calendar/cate...

I’m using official calendar holidays for writing milestones this year, and it’s allowed me to focus better since I know definitively when each writing project needs to be completed. This year’s schedule is set like this:

• April 7 (Good Friday) – Revised Draft of New Novel Completed

• May 29 (Memorial Day) – Polished Draft of Screenplay #1

• July 4 (Independence Day) – Revised Draft of Book #3 in YA Series

• September 4 (Labor Day) – Polished Draft of Screenplay #2

This doesn’t mean these are 100% completed and ready to go out; by those dates, I’ll have a finished draft of each project that can be edited and worked on further. It also means that, ideally, by Labor Day, four writing projects will be done, which is exciting!

Try it! Set a holiday-based deadline for one of your writing goals this year and see if you can complete it by that date. Make sure you give yourself time to work on it, so pick a holiday later in the year. If you finish before then, great! Keep writing and set a new goal.


Happy Goal Setting, and I’ll see you next time!

I’m taking a little break from the Tao of Creativity series this week to discuss writing goals in 2024. It’s less than a month away, so this is a great time to reflect on what you accomplished this past year and what you want to accomplish over the next twelve months.

How Was Your 2023?

Did you have any writing or creative goals this past year? If you did, how much did you complete on the list? This can be as simple as writing an outline, a first draft, or publishing a novel. Even small writing victories are worth noting and celebrating!

Were there projects you started but didn’t finish? Were there ideas you planned to develop that didn’t go anywhere? That’s perfectly fine. Life can often hinder our creative goals, so it’s important not to get down on ourselves or give up. After all, it’s just one year in a string of many, and the next one is just around the corner!

New to Writing Goals?

If you’re new to creating writing goals, don’t put unnecessary pressure on yourself by planning to write the Great American Novel. Start small. Write a short story. Write a poem or two. Maybe just plan to journal daily.

The key is to write, write some more, and keep writing. Try to make writing a habit in your daily routine. If you are writing for yourself and for fun, it should be an energizing activity that you look forward to. If you’re not enjoying your work, change course and start something new and different. Eventually, you’ll come across a story idea that clicks, and the words will flow.

Another Year, Another Set of Goals

I’m in this category. While I don’t always hit every goal on my list, I do try to complete at least one writing project, either as a full draft or a completed manuscript. It’s easy to become too ambitious at the start of the year and have to adjust accordingly if needed.

That’s perfectly fine, too. For example, I planned to write two novels this year, but I decided halfway through the year to focus on creating a new author’s website. That took up much of my time (I had to write a lot of content), so I published one novel this year and launched my new website. The second book is on my 2024 Writing Goals list.

Any Writing is Better Than No Writing

Don’t be afraid to be ambitious and make lofty goals. At the same time, don’t let yourself become overwhelmed and stop writing because it feels like too much to work on. Always keep in mind that writing should be an enjoyable and fun activity. You’re creating! It’s an adventure! Get excited!

Yes, you’ll have days that you don’t feel like writing, and that’s okay. The important thing is that you go back to it and keep going. In the end, you may not reach all your planned writing goals, but you will have written. And writing only helps make you a stronger writer in the long run.

Final Thoughts

A new year brings new resolutions and goals. It’s helpful to reflect on what we did and didn’t accomplish the previous year and challenge ourselves in the upcoming one. Whether you are new to writing or have done it for a while, give yourself goals that challenge you and make you want to sit down and write. As I said before, any writing is better than no writing.

Happy Writing and Planning, and I’ll be back with The Tao of Creativity series next week!

‘Tis the season to reflect on the past year and plan ahead for the new. When it comes to writing goals, it’s a good idea to have a game plan that gives you some direction about what you’d like to work on in the new year. It can be anything from writing more each week to writing a novel.

No matter what you want to do, make sure to write it down so you can keep yourself motivated and on track throughout the year.

One way to reflect and plan is to use a management term known as S.W.O.T. Analysis. Applying this concept to writing will give you the opportunity to examine the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats that can help make you a stronger writer going forward.

Let’s talk about each one!

Writing Strengths

Where do you feel you excel as a writer? What areas of the writing process really make you excited and ready to jump in and get started? Reflecting on your writing strengths is a great way to show yourself the skills and talents you bring to your writing. You can also see how you’ve more than likely improved over time and acquired new skills that have aided in making your writing stronger.

Your strengths could also be your editing abilities, writing clear and concise synopses or blurbs, or even drafting strong outlines for your stories. If it’s related to writing and you feel like you’ve got a handle on it, add it to the list.

Writing Weaknesses

We all have areas of the writing process we need to improve upon, and this is where to reflect on those. This is no time for a pity party, however. This is the time to understand and accept that these areas need your attention and work to make them stronger.

For example, one of my weaknesses is writing blurbs and synopses for my novels. So, this coming year, I’m going to focus on getting better at writing those and being more concise in my writing.

As you focus your attention on these weaker areas and actively work to improve them, you’ll find that your writing as a whole will also be elevated and better.

Writing Opportunities

Look for more ways to fit writing into your schedule. It’s amazing how much free time most of us have, and it gets eaten away by watching TV or scrolling on our phones.

Decide this year to write for an hour or more a day instead of watching something or doomscrolling the news. It’s a much more productive use of your time, and you’ll feel better afterward.

If you seek out the time to write, you will find the time to write.

Also, look for ways to share your writing with others, enter writing contests, or publish your work. These can be great motivators to get projects done and help you experience the writing process from beginning to end.

Writing Threats

What things might be preventing you from writing? They can be internal or external, but identifying them is a good step toward eliminating them. It might be your own fears about writing or a fear of feedback from others. These fears can threaten your ability to write and stop you before you start.

Once way to push past the threat is to write through the threat. Have a journal. Every time you feel that fear or other negative force that’s preventing you from writing loom over you, write about it. Why does it exist? What strategies can you use to push past it and start writing? Could you write a short story where you battle the threat that’s preventing you from writing?

Whenever a threat pops up that prevents you from being creative, identify it, work through it, and move forward. Don’t allow yourself or others to prevent you from writing.

Final Thoughts

By identifying your writing Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats and making clear writing goals for the new year, you can help yourself develop into a stronger and more consistent writer.

Happy Goal-Setting and I’ll see you next time!

Happy New Year, everyone!

Whether you’re making new writing or creative goals for 2024 or continuing projects from last year, do your best to stay positive and work on things you enjoy.

Have a great rest of your holiday season!

Perfection is a myth. It’s an unattainable metric that no one should measure themselves by. Striving for perfection can lead to stress and anxiety and negatively affect one’s creativity. It's a struggle we all face, especially in a world where social media bombards us with the perception of perfection. This can be overwhelming and lead to procrastination and possibly walking away from one’s creative goals.

It's time we strike perfection from our creative vocabulary and embrace a better term: PROGRESS.

Progress begins wherever you are as a writer. Whatever that baseline is, you'll improve as you write and continue to write. Improvement is a positive goal to reach for. It means you are becoming a stronger writer, a better writer, and a more confident writer.

This is the path you want to follow, where you keep at it and progress toward finishing that sentence, paragraph, chapter, and book. Then, you can progress to the editing and publishing phases.

If you structure your creative goals in terms of progression, not perfection, you are now in charge of your goals and the outcome of your work. It’s not some fantastical out-of-reach concept that does more harm than good.

Each time you sit down to write, whether 100 words or 1,000 words, you are making progress on whatever project you’re working on. If you get trapped in the perfection trap, you may never escape those 100 words, become frustrated, and stop writing.

Don’t let that happen.

Remember that every book, screenplay, play, or other creative endeavor didn’t look like the finished product when it was started. Professional creative people don’t aspire to perfection; they aim for progress. More words each day. A new chapter each day. A new scene each day. Eventually, the work is completed and gets to a point where it can be shown to others and experienced.

If authors like Stephen King were locked in a perfection loop, he might still be agonizing over Carrie today instead of being the author of over 77 books!

You don’t get to numbers like that by being a perfectionist. You do it by making progress each time you sit down to write.

Progress, Not Perfection.

Happy Writing, and I’ll see you next time!

We’re in the final days of 2024, and if you haven’t thought about your writing or creative goals for 2025, now would be a good time. It’s essential to establish a few goals as we enter the new year so you can plan how to achieve them before the end of the upcoming year.

Let’s talk about it!

#1 - Set Achievable Goals

This seems logical, but it’s easy to get carried away and overreach with your goals at the start of the year. Much like the classic New Year’s Resolution, if you aim too high, you could grow frustrated and stop working toward your chosen goal if it’s too large.

If you’ve never written a novel before and want that to be your primary goal this coming year, that’s great. That’s an achievable goal. Then, once you know the steps and how to achieve writing one novel, you can add more goals the following year. The key is not to overwhelm yourself or self-sabotage before the goal starts.

#2 - What’s Your Schedule?

Along with setting achievable goals, it’s important to look at your schedule to see how much time you have to work toward your writing goals.

Be honest with yourself: How much time do you actually have to get things done?

Assess your schedule and see where you can fit writing time during the week. Plenty of hours are available to all of us, most of which are spent on our phones, binge-watching shows, or wasting time in other ways. Using these wasted hours and turning them into productive time to create can help you move toward your goals.

Can you swap out watching an hour of TV for working on your writing? Yes, you can.

If you have the drive to do it, you’ll find the time to make it happen.

#3 - Break It All Down

Planning out smaller tasks and aspects of the project that add up to a larger goal can help you stay focused and reduce stress. All projects have dozens of components that must be completed before the finished product is achieved.

When you sit down to plan, think about the varied tasks you can work on daily or weekly to help you move forward with the project and complete it by the end of the year. Having a big goal is excellent; smaller goals over time are the best way to reach it.

#4 - Set Milestones

Give yourself deadlines to reach specific project milestones. By breaking the work into manageable chunks, you can see where you’ll be in the project three, six, or nine months in advance.

Could you complete your novel's outline in three months, a first draft by the six-month mark, and a polished draft within nine months? Absolutely. These are achievable goals, but you need to plan out how you will reach these milestones.

It’s also important to reward yourself when each milestone is completed. Even if it’s something small, it’s nice to incentivize yourself to get things done.

#5 - Enjoy the Process

It’s easy to look at all the completed novels and screenplays and get intimidated, but remember that all these writers started where you are right now.

Completing a writing project is a great feeling, but you must train yourself to enjoy the writing and creative process to keep that momentum going to get you to the finished work. This will ensure you are motivated to attack your projects and goals each day and that your milestones and writing objectives are completed.

Happy Goal-setting, and I’ll see you next time!

It’s that pesky thing that plagues writers when they’re starting out: finding the time to write. It can be a challenge to balance writing time with work, school, kids, family obligations, sleep, grocery shopping, and a myriad other things that occupy our days, weeks, and months. If you’re serious about getting your ideas down on paper, there’s always a way to make it happen.

Downtime Can Be Writing Time

Like most people, I enjoy binge-watching shows or movies and letting my brain turn off after a long week of work, coworker drama, and traffic. However, within this timeframe, you can find an hour or two to nurture your own creativity.

I’m often amazed at how much time I can spend watching YouTube clips and how many words I can write when I take the same time period and do something creative.

Should I Write Every Day?

If you can write every day, you should make the effort, but if you are busy and only have weekends to sit down and write, that’s fine, too. It is essential to find some time in your week to work on your creativity and the writing process, even if it is one or two days a week.

Currently, I mainly work on my writing projects on Saturdays and write as long as I can until I go cross-eyed and need to take a break. I’ve found that Saturdays and during a specific period during that day (7 pm to 3 am) are the ideal conditions for me to be at my creative best and remain focused.

What About Goals?

Should you use time, word count, or page count as a metric for your writing sessions? I suggest carving out time each day or each week to write at the start. That gives you a set allotment of time, but there’s no pressure to hit a word or page count.

As you fall into a routine, you can challenge yourself by adding a word count or page count goal and seeing how fast you hit that during your writing sessions. Can you raise the count and get more done as the weeks progress? If you can, give yourself the challenge to get more done. You’ll be amazed at how much you can accomplish once you’re in the zone.

Because I’m a little crazy, I set a weekly goal of 10,000 words, which I can usually accomplish in my Saturday session. If I need to stretch my goal out, I have six other days to squeeze in time to get to that goal. The key is to meet or exceed the goal as often as possible so it becomes habitual.

Final Thoughts

Setting aside time and crafting attainable writing goals that can be increased and modified to challenge yourself continually is an excellent way to finish your writing projects. Take the time to see what schedule works best for you, then sit down and see how creative and productive you can be.

Happy Writing, and I’ll see you next time!