Bryan Murphy's Blog - Posts Tagged "goals"
Goals
A year ago, I decided to set myself specific quantitative goals for my writing in 2014. I came up with these:
- publish more poems in one year than ever before;
- produce the first draft of my novel;
- double my e-book sales/downloads to date.
How did I do?
In the event, the first goal went by the board as I concentrated on the other two. I would have had to publish 29 poems to break my record from 2012, but I only managed two.
In contrast, drafting the novel proved to be a doddle. I worked on it steadily and finished the first draft in August.
The target for e-books required securing as many sales/downloads in 12 months as I had in the previous 18 months. It was never really on the cards after Sony pulled out of the e-book market in March, though a late flourish in December helped me to achieve a respectable 89% of the target.
This year, I intend to play things by ear, not by numbers. Keeping stats can be fun, but it can also become compulsive. I think I have enough discipline not to need quantitative goals, but maybe not enough to keep them in their place. This year, I’m going for quality.
- publish more poems in one year than ever before;
- produce the first draft of my novel;
- double my e-book sales/downloads to date.
How did I do?
In the event, the first goal went by the board as I concentrated on the other two. I would have had to publish 29 poems to break my record from 2012, but I only managed two.
In contrast, drafting the novel proved to be a doddle. I worked on it steadily and finished the first draft in August.
The target for e-books required securing as many sales/downloads in 12 months as I had in the previous 18 months. It was never really on the cards after Sony pulled out of the e-book market in March, though a late flourish in December helped me to achieve a respectable 89% of the target.
This year, I intend to play things by ear, not by numbers. Keeping stats can be fun, but it can also become compulsive. I think I have enough discipline not to need quantitative goals, but maybe not enough to keep them in their place. This year, I’m going for quality.
