Caroline Donahue posted an amazing article recently about altering goals to be framed with what we can control.
Usually, when you set a goal and don’t reach it, you’ve done one of three things:
- Made success contingent on someone else
- Been unrealistic about the time and energy you have to devote to the goal
- You haven’t broken it down into something you can track
And then it hit me that this is exactly what I do with almost all of my goals for myself. Her example is that “Get an agent” is contingent upon someone else (the agent) instead of yourself. All you can control is sending out the queries and entering spaces that can be noticed. The goal is no longer “get an agent” but instead “query X number of agents in X amount of time.”
Let’s reframe my goals
What is my main goal?
- Finish my book
This goal is a) very vague and b) not measurable. So let’s adjust shall we?
Finish my book:
What do I mean by this? Is it just finishing a clean draft? Finishing it clean enough to publish? Finishing it clean enough to start sending out?
When I say “Finish my book,” I think I mean finish it clean enough to publish. But, it really doesn’t need to be THAT finished. Yes, you get it as clean as you can to send it out to agents, but they will still have adjustments and edits. So I think the better way to phrase this would be:
Get my manuscript query ready.
How do I measure this? That’s such a hard question for creatives. We, usually, are not really math people. So I’d say, it would be “query ready” when I finally feel it tells the story I want it to. Right now there are some lingering confusing motivations, unclear stakes, and vague metaphors that don’t quite hit. So, I still have some structural pieces to work through. So…measurable milestone would be what?
Make all developmental edits and give the manuscript a thorough proofread to be query-ready.
Do I have a timeline? Originally I wanted to be ready to send by September. That’s not happening hahaha. There are six months left in this year, but I’m also prepping for a very large event in October. Another thing Caroline has said in the past is to take your imagined timeline and double it. So, that would be one year, which feels stupidly doable. I say stupidly because I’ve seen other authors crank out like 2-3 books in that time. However, they also have a team behind them, or at least have done this before. I feel slow, but that’s okay. This is my more “literary” project. Is it fantasy? yes. But the writing itself, the themes and such, those are all far more literary than I usually go.
Make all developmental edits and thoroughly proofread the manuscript to be query-ready by July 2025.
Make a Plan:
They say a goal without a plan is just a wish. So, let’s make a plan as well.
I’m already 7 chapters into my edit (7 of 25). My original plan was to edit 4 to 5 chapters per month, which works out to about a chapter per week-ish. I have 18 chapters left, so 18 weeks puts us at the end of October…which is right when my wedding is happening (oof). I can probably say pretty confidently that October will be a wash. We have about 29ish weeks left of the year. If I double my deadline to give me more breathing room, it would be 36 weeks or March 2025. I feel pretty good about March for a deadline.
With 2x the weeks, I could go to 2 chapters per month or about half a chapter each week. I already know that I’m more of a weekend warrior when it comes to writing, but I’d like to at least get a day in each week as well. I also want to keep things manageable. Sometimes I can’t get myself to focus for an entire hour on one project, so we’ll start with 30 minutes during the week and leave the hour for the weekends.
The last piece will be about tracking my changes. There are a lot of small changes to be made, but also a lot of small but significant changes. There is no way I will be able to keep these in my head to be able to keep them consistent across months of work. I want to create a revised storyboard that I can add notes to for reference. I did something similar for my first major edit, but I think I need another version of this for the developmental edits.
Make all developmental edits by March 9th, 2025.
- 30 minutes of dedicated editing time each Thursday.
- One hour of dedicated editing time every weekend.
- Create a revised storyboard to track changes.
Rewards
Staying focused requires adequate rewards for finishing milestones. For me, I’m going to be tracking each chapter finished with a little sticker, and for every 5 I finish I’m going to give myself a little treat. Treats are TBD, but it’s never hard to find a good one. I think to also stay motivated, I’ll let myself get a fancy coffee for my weekend edits. Maybe that will even turn into writing dates with myself (or friends) at the coffee shop.
I need to think of a BIG reward. The one I get at the very end of the project for sticking it out and getting my edits done. I’d love it to be something related to the book or the writing process. Any suggestions let me know!
So that’s my goal and my plan sorted. I’ve got a clear direction and a clear action plan. I know things won’t always go super smoothly, but I’m learning to be patient with myself and give myself some grace when I don’t meet my own expectations.
Happy Writing!
Rachel
Subtle Stories 