Goals Day 3: Action Plan

To work, goals should be broken into small micro-actions necessary to complete the larger goals. As Kanye West learned in 2020, you can’t run for president if you don’t complete the proper paperwork first.
Goals require action. For example, if “publishing my first novel” is your overarching goal, break it down into specific parts:

• Write 500 words a day
  
• Finish 80,000 word novel in 6 months
  
• Query agents and editors
  
• Send out submissions
  
• Start next novel
  

Brainstorm

What is it you want from or for your writing career? Take some time to write your answers in a notebook or digital document. Ask and answer these questions:

• How much time out of my day/week can I dedicate to writing?
• What other responsibilities do I have that conflict with writing time? Think about your day job, your family, and your community. What responsibilities come before writing? It’s not a bad thing to recognize that some things—like your kids or your parents—might take precedence over writing. It’s being realistic.
• How can I manage all my responsibilities? What can I do to balance my personal, professional, and writing lives?
• What will I do to feed my creativity and where will I put that in my schedule?

Writing prose (novels, short stories, creative nonfiction, essays, memoir, etc), requires time to complete, but how much time is really up to how fast you write, how much time you have available to write, and what other priorities impact your writing time. Knowing ahead of time what matters will make saying no to stuff outside of your priorities that much easier. For instance, it’s easy for me to say no, I can’t join that committee, because I know that it does not align with my goals. 
Time is finite, use yours well.

Mill around checklist
In the military, we had a name for those all-too-frequent occasions when we had to show up 2.5 hours early for a briefing. We called it the mill-around checklist, because no one knew what was happening or when it would start. We do that with writing when we don’t plan. We open a file, read the last few pages or paragraphs, spend time on internet “research,” check our email and social media while we’re online, etc. That’s the writers’ mill-around checklist. Do what you must to prevent that from happening.

Get started now by developing your goals into an action plan.

Action plan
Open up your brainstorming questions from Day 2. Are they measurable? Achievable and realistic? Do they have a deadline?

Generally speaking, the more often you keep your goals in mind, the more often you review your goals, adjust as needed, and note your successes, the more likely you are to succeed at reaching your goals.

How you measure success is up to each individual writer, but keep in mind that you cannot control most of the publishing process. Focus on what you can control: word count, queries, submissions, and completion. The rest is up to the volatile writing gods.

Micro-actions are specific things you can do during your writing time to achieve your goal. A common question for expressive writers (journaling with a purpose) is to create a list of micro-actions that they can use when faced with a certain situation (often a trigger). In this way, the expressive writer plans for those moments rather than let those moments become a surprise attack. We then re-evaluate to see how that plan of action works. You will do the same with your creative writing schedule.

Brainstorm 2

Ask yourself the following: what is the specific goal? What is the end result you want out of the goal? What actions do you need to take to get there?
For example:

• Goal: Write an 80,000 word novel in 6 months
• End result: Submit 80,000 word speculative fiction novel to 10 agents and editors who represent speculative fiction (notice how specific this goal is)

Actions: 

• Write 500 words a day or 3000 words each week. The number itself is irrelevant. You don’t have to write 500 words a day. You could write 500 words per week. This is very much up to each individual writer.
  Give myself one day a week to rest and refill my creative well (Julia Cameron)
  Finish the novel by X-date and write the synopsis
  Research agents and editors, compile a list of possibilities, and prepare query letters and pitches
  Send queries. When it comes to queries, try to keep several out at one time. We’re less likely to freeze over a rejection if we know we have other possibilities out in the world.

• Just make sure that your writing goals are realistic and achievable, and then take time periodically to re-evaluate the process and see if the goal is over-aggressive or under-achieving.

Each of your goals can be broken down into micro-actions necessary to completing the goal. While you can and should create your own goals and actions, keep in mind that you should be realistic. Build in time for real life, emergencies, and rest.

Day 3 Homework

Take some time to write your brainstorm answers in a notebook or digital document. Complete the above process for each of the 3 goals you created in Day 2. Know your goal, the end result you want, and the micro-actions necessary to do the work.

Looking ahead
When you are finished, you will be ready to work on time management for writers in Day 4.