Write That Novel: Setting Goals

Last week, I confessed that I had shelved the manuscript I’d been working on for over a year.

After that, I decided to give myself a little writing break to get over it (another confession, I can be pretty artistic and emotional sometimes).

But the best way to get over a disappointment, especially being disappointed in yourself, is to get right back on the horse and try again.

So, to that end, I’ve decided to keep track of the progress on my next novel here.

I’ll be sharing the process, my progress, and what I learn along the way. Partly to keep myself accountable, of course. And partly to entertain and inspire (because that’s what writers do, am I right?) But also so that I can look back and see what I’ve learned over the course of writing. I’ve never kept track of the process of fiction writing – it’s always just been something that I did without thinking.

But I hope that, if I keep track of this one as I go, I won’t find myself stuck the way I did with the last one.

After all, being systematic with my business writing has always helped. There’s no real reason creative writing can’t be the same, at least to some extent.

So, to begin the accountability, I’ve decided to start by setting myself very clear goals.

Finish Draft One by the End of May

I’ve finished several novels before (none of which will ever see the light of day, unless I thoroughly rework them some day in the future). So I know it can be done.

Setting a goal of May 31st gives me just over three months to get through the first draft. Since I expect this novel to be somewhere in the 80k-100K range, that’s means I only need to average about 1,000 words a day, which is incredibly doable.

Edits and Critiques

I have two awesome critique partners who are also writers, as well as very friends and family who are avid readers and can give me a good audience perspective.

I’d like to spend June and July getting feedback and rewriting, so that I have a full second draft by the end of July and a third draft by the end of August.

Begin Submitting to Agents

I’d like to think that I’ll have a great draft by the end of August, and that by September I’ll be ready to start submitting to agents. But I know sometimes that just doesn’t happen. And I’d rather spend longer editing and rewriting and having a very strong draft to submit than to jump the gun.

Regardless of how the timeline falls out, though, my goal is to begin submitting to agents before the end of 2014.

Pursuing Traditional Publishing

I’ll state right off, my goal is to be traditionally published with this one.

Not because I have anything against self-publishing. I think it’s amazing, and has allowed some awesome authors to get their work out there while keeping it under their own control.

But traditionally publishing takes some of the pressure off the author to market and schedule and manage the PR side of things (though less than it used to, I’m fairly sure). And I already spend a lot of time of that for my other work. My hope is that a more traditional author-agent-publisher relationship will take some of those responsibilities away from me, since there would be a team to manage them.

That being said, would I self-publish if I can’t find an agent that’s a good fit for me and my work? Absolutely.

I intend to write a book I have confidence in, that I love and want to put out there and share with an audience. I wouldn’t seek any sort of publishing if I didn’t feel that way!

So, those are my novel-writing goals for this year.

I can’t wait to see how this goes!