Well, now, its the end of the year, and thus time to take stock on what i have done to accomplish my writing and related goals for 2014.
Achievements can be be summarized as “Mixed”.
I did finish the first draft of Western Watch — yea! But that was in July and I I sat on my ass for several — ok, five — months before even lifting a finger to begin the second draft.
I had a 2014 goal of finishing the second draft as well. Not so much there. And the third draft as well.
I had set a goal to post a blog article once a week. I averaged once a month. Improvement needed.
My Twitter goal was 5 writing or art/animated posts per week in 2014. Hmmmm…I was lucky to do one tweet a month. Well, maybe not that bad, but bad enough.
I’ve been thinking about this for awhile — my inability to meet my writing goals — and it all boils down to a lack of focus. I got distracted by other interests — look, squirrel! — and lost track of my goals. In addition, I failed to break the goals down into monthly or even weekly sub-goals for draft writing. I was always easy to justify not doing anything this week because, after all, I have an entire year to get things done. This kind of thinking has not worked out all that well for me.
In 2015 I plan to develop the habit of writing consistently — at least four times a week. I’m still mulling over the word count goal for each session. In addition, I think my draft goals were a little too ambitious given the time I have. Finish the first, second and third draft of a 130,000 word novel in 12 months? What was a I thinking? And yes, I know that others have done that easily. Whenever I want to get depressed I compare myself to those writers.
I know I can develop the habits. Last year I wanted to workout with weights at least four times a week. I met that goal. Now I have to develop the writing habit.
Onward to 2015!
