Keep Your Writing Goals Front and Center

As a writer, you have to move forward to keep up with the onslaught of books and authors in the book publishing arena. And you especially need to be sure you’re staying in alignment with your writing goals. This means you need to stop every now and then to evaluate your core goals and whether you’re actually heading in that direction.

Every marketer will tell you that the beginning of each year, you need to create a list of core or major goals. It’s important to make your goals realistic and attainable, and not to burden yourself with too many.

Three is a good number of writing goals, not too few, not too many. Then, under each goal, list a few tasks that you will do on a daily or weekly basis to help you reach your objectives.

In addition to typing or writing your goals down, they need to be printed and kept visible. It’s important to put them somewhere you’ll be sure to notice every day. You might put your list on your computer, inside your laptop case, on top of your daily planner, on the inside of a kitchen cabinet you open everyday.

You get the idea: your writing goals need to be visible each and every day. Not just visible, though, they need to be read each and every day.

Why is it important to keep your writing goals front and center?

Here’s another question to help answer that question: Did you ever hear the expression, ‘Out of sight, out of mind?’

That’s your answer.

On January 1st of ‘any year,’ you may tell yourself, and maybe even write it down, that you will:

1. Write a minimum of five pages of your new book each week.
2. Effectively market your published books.
3. Submit articles to three paying magazines on a monthly basis.

Okay, that’s great. But, suppose it’s now July, and you haven’t even written 10 pages of your new book, and you haven’t gone past the very basics of promoting your published books.

What happened to your writing goals?

Easy. You didn’t keep your goals list front and center, so you got sidetracked.

While you may have had the best of intentions on January 1st, if you don’t keep those writing goals visible, it’s difficult to stay on course.

Maybe you decided to add the writing of unrelated ebooks to your workload.

Maybe you decided to do book reviews and started a critique group of your own.

Maybe you devoted too much time to social networking and your online groups.

These additions may not necessarily be a bad thing, but before you continue on, ask yourself three questions:

1. Are these additions to your workload moving you in the direction of your primary writing goals?
2. Are they actually keeping you from attaining your goals?
3. Are they providing some kind of income?

If your answers to these questions are NO, YES, NO, then you need to step back, redirect your steps, and get back on track. If you keep your writing goals front and center, you’ll be amazed at how you automatically work toward achieving them.

And, interestingly, it seems once you have that focus, the universe somehow aligns itself with you and things start falling into place.

I’m a working children’s ghostwriter, rewriter, and coach. I can help turn your story into a book you’ll be proud to be the author of, one that’s publishable and marketable.

OTHER HELP I OFFER:

HOW TO WRITE A CHILDREN’S FICTION BOOK
A DIY book to help you write your own children’s book.

FICTION WRITING FOR CHILDREN eCOURSE
4-Weeks / 8 Sections Guided Self-Study Program

WRITERS ON THE MOVE SELF-PUBLISHING SERVICE
Self-publishing help for children’s authors
(Picture books and chapter books)

You can contact me at kcioffiventrice@gmail.com.