alien romances: New Year's resolutions

Showing posts with label New Year's resolutions. Show all posts

Friday, January 10, 2025

Taking the Bucket Out of the Bucket List, Part 2 by Karen S. Wiesner

Taking the Bucket Out of the Bucket List, Part 2

by Karen S. Wiesner

In this final of an updated, two part reprisal of earlier posts on the Alien Romances blog, I discuss the wisdom and benefits of, and strategies for, drawing up a personal bucket list as early as possible--long before the curtain of a life is drawn. Only slightly belated as you draw up your New Year’s resolutions, I encourage everyone, not just those interested in writing (or aliens!), to read this.

Last week we went over what a bucket list is, and I discussed my own realizations of wanting to achieve my most desired goals early enough in life to enjoy them throughout all the days of my life that followed. Let's continue with actual strategies for forging ahead.

Taking the Next Step--Are You Ready?

Coming up with a formal or informal bucket list as early in life as possible will help anyone focus their time and energies in areas they're already passionate about as well as provide excitement, inspiration, and the push toward finding purpose and a sense of accomplishment long before the curtain of a life is drawn.

While I was working on this article, I was asked a couple questions that are worth considering on your own as you decide whether you're ready to take the bull by the horns yourself.

Had I been making bucket lists since my twenties, or did I just start making them recently? All things considered, I’d have to conclude I’ve actually been making them mentally since I was 20 and I just never really realized that was what I was doing all this time.

Would I have benefited in my twenties by formally writing my goals down? Have I benefited now for writing them down versus just thinking about my plans in my head? I suppose the blanket answer to these two questions that feed into each other is about the same: It might have benefited me to formally write down my bucket list goals at any point; however, I’ve always had a mind like a relentless robot seeking out all the dark corners of my own soul. For me, it didn’t really make a huge difference to officially spell out my goals for myself. What you've seen presented in this article is what I saw in my head from the beginning. That said, I think most people probably will benefit greatly from actually make their bucket lists formal plans with loose or definitive goals.

I have several pieces of advice to those wanting to forge ahead into a life lived with purpose:

A. Choose wisely. You don't have to feel like you're required to have a certain number of goals on your list. I have four, which is a nice, even number, but if you only ever have one, that's fine. You can add to it if you want to (no pressure) at any time as you complete or become proficient at priority items. This thing isn't set in stone, nor should it be. If you discover one of your wishes isn't really something you like after all, well, you've learned something about yourself you didn't know before, right? That said, you do want to include on this list only things that you're strongly zealous about and are deeply committed to fulfilling. This is another reason why limiting the list is advisable. There's no point in having a checklist of this kind that includes a bunch of things you're not serious enough to actually make deliberate preparations in undertaking. I don't think anyone needs another random to-do list lying around collecting dust.

B. Prioritize your bucket list in the order of the things you want to accomplish first and last, and don't try to take on the whole list at once. That's a recipe for failure. Start with the top one, the most important to you, and make a serious go of completing and/or developing it over time, perhaps even years. Make this part of your daily or weekly life. The whole reason for doing this long in advance of having an actual deadline (especially one as final as death!) is to accomplish things you enjoy and may spend the rest of your life taking pleasure in and cultivating. In many cases, the items on your list will require an investment: Of time, discipline, energy, money, and frequently all of the above. Trust me, you're embarking on a labor of love with any one of these.

C. Make a plan for how to go about fulfilling the items on your bucket list, one at a time. Set goals over time so you're doing something toward making the wish reality. Make a commitment to forging ahead with your goals. Start small, if you need to, and make initially small investments of time, energy, and finances. Work into the passion that can motivate you to keep going bigger and better. I know a lot of people can't think of long-term projects that require large investments of time, energy, or money because their lives are busy, complicated, and/or they're financially unable. In those situations, creativity may be needed to get started. Devote just five, ten, fifteen minutes--whatever you can eke out every day or once a week to advance your project. Take free classes at your local library or online. Ask close friends and family to gift you with an item you need for a birthday or Christmas. Small, slow, and frugal can produce results eventually, too!

D. Define your reasons for what you hope to accomplish with each item on your bucket list if for no other reason than that you set yourself on a path toward seeing where it's going, or where it could be going. I wanted to understand my motivations clearly from the start, whether I intended to advance in these areas for individual edification or for something more--such as, my drawing could potentially lead to an exciting new career for me in the future.

E. Only you can decide if your pursuits are worthwhile. Don't let yourself or anyone else tell you that something you've chosen to do isn't meaningful or significant. The goal of personal development is valuable--whatever your chosen aspiration. At the very least, anything you achieve is one regret you'll never have to feel.

Nearly three decades after I started pursuing the wishes on my informal bucket list, I find myself realizing that as I look back over what I've managed to accomplish, I'm satisfied. If my time in this world ended tomorrow, I would feel as though I lived with purpose and that I'd accomplished something worthwhile. Instead of waiting until I was close to kicking the bucket, you might say I took the bucket out of my bucket list. I took the bull by the horns, and I'm reaching for previously categorized "don't even bother wishing 'cause they can't come true" things and I'm making them a passionate part of my everyday reality, one at a time, step by step, until my time runs out.

If you're interested in taking the bucket out of your own bucket list, jumping in now on the things you've always wanted to do, the worksheet below might be helpful in getting you started. You can and should come back to this often in the future to revise and hone your goals, re-strategizing as you make progress from one item to the next. Remember, small, slow, and cheap still means moving forward.

My Bucket List

Date: (may include the dates of whenever you've revised)

What's in My Bucket

Wishes: (listed in order of priority, #1 being the one I'm most passionate about and the one I'll get started on first)

When and how will I begin to reach for things in my bucket?

a) How long do I want to experience this goal? Circle one: Once | Ongoing | Until I'm finished

b) Detail the first step to beginning:

c) Describe later steps to developing my goal:

d) Specify the time(s) and day(s) I'm devoting to the undertaking:

e) Brainstorm strategies to help accomplish my wish:

f) Identify why this is in my bucket and what I hope to get out of it:

When and how will I begin to reach for things in my bucket?

a) How long do I want to experience this goal? Circle one: Once | Ongoing | Until I'm finished

b) Detail the first step to beginning:

c) Describe later steps to developing my goal:

d) Specify the time(s) and day(s) I'm devoting to the undertaking:

e) Brainstorm strategies to help accomplish my wish:

f) Identify why this is in my bucket and what I hope to get out of it:

You can find a PDF of this worksheet here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/uploads/2/3/5/5/23554234/bucketlistcourtesyofkarenwiesnertypeb.pdf

For those who are more goal-oriented, Type A personalities like myself, you might want an even more vigorous plan of attack. For that, I offer a more in-depth worksheet, which you can find here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/uploads/2/3/5/5/23554234/bucketlistcourtesyofkarenwiesnertypea.pdf , or you could even incorporate the heart of the bucket list ideals into a SMART goals program (a simple internet search will hook you up for that).

"Seize the life and the day will follow!" ~Linda Derkez

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Friday, January 03, 2025

Taking the Bucket Out of the Bucket List, Part 1 by Karen S. Wiesner

Taking the Bucket Out of the Bucket List, Part 1

by Karen S. Wiesner

In this updated, two part reprisal of earlier posts on the Alien Romances blog, I discuss the wisdom and benefits of, and strategies for, drawing up a personal bucket list as early as possible--long before the curtain of a life is drawn. Only slightly belated as you draw up your New Year's resolutions, I encourage everyone, not just those interested in writing (or aliens!), to read this.

About 10 years ago, I sort of watched the movie The Bucket List out of my peripheral vision. My husband is fond of watching movies on one of our TVs while I play videogames on the other. Condensing the theme of that movie, two terminally ill, older men come up with a wish list of things they want to do--and, in an abbreviated amount of time, they attempt to fulfill them--before their time on Earth literally runs out. My first thought in response to the theme of this film was, Why would anyone want to do this when they're old, tired, dying, and it's nearly too late? Why not do the things you're passionate about long before there actually is a countdown to death and while young enough to truly enjoy the adventure(s) undertaken? Few questions have ever motivated me more than these two.

As far as the internet can tell, the term "bucket list" was either created or popularized by that 2007, so-named movie. A bucket list is believed to relate to the idiom "kick the bucket", which is a term that originated in the 16th century. Be prepared to cringe: The wooden frame that was used to suspend slaughtered animals was called a bucket. I think you can guess what happened after they were hung up by their hooves. Yikes. Long story short, there was a lot of kicking done just prior to death. A bucket list, then, is created to clarify what one wishes to accomplish either in a specific timeframe (as in, "one and done" tasks completed in a short amount of time) or by the end of a life (long-term projects). Bucket list wishes can be self-actualization goals or ones you've set for endeavors such as charity work, career, or family or friend-related purposes.

While at that time I didn't really sit down and write up a formal bucket list of my own, I thought long and hard about which goals would make mine. The most important factors in doing this, for me, were, first and foremost, that I would be able to enjoy them all throughout the rest of my life, and, only slightly less important, that I'd be able to accomplish my personal goals earlier in life than "at the end".

My list actually wasn't that difficult to come up with, as I'm sure other people will discover as well, because many of these were already passions I was unwilling or unable to indulge in thus far in my life. In the process, I formulated a list of four things I'd spent my lifetime up to that point dreaming about but not believing I could do. My reasons for not doing them stemmed from a) the expense involved, b) the lack of time to undertake them, and c) being very aware that it takes me a long time and a whole lot of effort to learn new things (in part because I was already 45 years old when I embarked on this).

Unofficially, I suppose the first real bucket list wish I made started with writing. I wrote (and illustrated) my first story when I was eight, and I always knew that was what I wanted to do more than anything else. There was little if any encouragement around me for this endeavor but, in the defense of my friends and family, becoming a success in this field isn't exactly a stable environment or income. When I was 20, I was determined to make a go of it regardless. My first book was published when I was 27…just after I'd made the heartrending decision to quit writing because I'd already invested nearly a decade attempting and failing to get published. Sometimes it takes that kind of irony to kick you in the pants and inspire you to reach for more. I spent the next 27 years of my life setting goals and pouring my all into making something of my writing. As I near the end of my writing career at the age of almost 55, my published credits in most every genre imaginable have passed 150 titles and these have garnered nominations or wins for over 130 awards.

The bucket list of lifelong passions I officially came up with after watching The Bucket List was quickly assembled (written down here years later in all the detail I imagined from its origin), prioritizing my wishes according to my deepest desires:

#1: Learn to play piano. I've loved music all my life. I can't stand silence so music fills all my waking moments. I wasn't allowed to learn an instrument in school, and I'd wanted to from the moment the possibility was brought up. My goal in doing this wasn't fame or to perform in a professional setting. It would only ever be for private enrichment and perhaps to accompany family and friends--many of them musicians.

I started small with the first Alfred's Piano instruction book and my son's discarded keyboard. I practiced every day, teaching myself from the manual and asking my guitar- and saxophone-playing husband (who was part of the praise team band at our church) for help whenever I needed it. Naturally, that keyboard quickly didn't have what I needed to advance (88 keys and pedals), but a generous gift allowed me to purchase my first beautiful piano. I also started taking piano lessons nearly a year into my efforts and took them for more than four years. When my instructor moved away, I went back to teaching myself.

At the time I started, I committed myself to this, my #1 bucket list priority, and I was disciplined in daily practice and learning as much as I could about all aspects. I knew going into it that it would be the biggest challenge of my life, and, boy, was (and is) it. But it's worth it. Nearly a decade in now, I'm still learning, still developing, still passionate about it, and it's something I'll do, and enjoy, until the day I die.

#2: Develop my drawing and artistic skills across many types of media. I've been writing children's books as long as I can remember, but finding someone to illustrate them hasn't been easy. I've had many stories that I've written that I couldn't get anyone to provide artwork for so they're sitting in my story cupboard, unpublished. In the past, I often wished that the fledgling talent I've had all my life in this field could be cultivated and honed into true ability. While I didn't at first intend to make illustrating children's books a career, when I made my decision several years ago to retire from writing soon, I realized that it was exactly what I wanted to do once I'd completed the last of my 16 book series.

I started slow and cheap. Using inexpensive pencils and drawing pads or typing paper I already had lying around the house, I randomly drew whatever inspired me whenever I had downtime from writing. In the first year I undertook this, I produced a few good things. I wasn't trying to do anything serious beyond seeing what I could accomplish and what my strengths and weaknesses were. I knew if I let myself get too excited, it would interrupt my writing, and I didn't want to do that, considering I was counting down to completing my last several novels. I wanted to devote myself to making those stories the best they could be.

Finding myself slowing down in general with nearly everything in my life, recovering from writing projects became much more difficult for me. I needed longer breaks and other ways to relax in between projects. I invested a bit more time and money into my artistic endeavors. I found a place that offers affordable DVD/streaming courses taught by some of the best experts in their respective fields and purchased three art classes on drawing, pencil coloring, and painting. These could be done as I had time and I could set my own pace. I purchased artist grade pencils, paper, and other supplies and equipment. Additionally, I reworked my daily and yearly goals to include times of writing and times of art. I also decided to bring along my readers on this endeavor by posting my art (such as it was) on my Facebook page. The response has been both motivating and moving.

As my artistic abilities grow, I'm finding the process hard, but also realizing I can do things I could never have imagined I was capable of in the past. At the moment, I'm still reining in how much time and effort I devote to these endeavors, but, as of late 2024, I'd finished the final books in my last two series. By the time I'm ready to get started illustrating my first children's book, I'm hoping I'll have a wide variety of mediums I'm skilled enough in to utilize. Now that I'm completely done writing, all I have to do is wait for the last ten of my books to be edited and published. It's full-speed ahead on art while I wait.

#3: Learn a second language. I took a year of French in high school and I was actually really good at reading and writing the language, just not speaking it. When it started getting mathematical (the way they do numbers is hard!), I dropped out. I've regretted my decision not to continue. Also, I used to have a friend who spoke native Spanish, and I always wished I could understand her when she talked to her family in the language. That would have been the perfect time to start learning, as I could have gotten real feedback and help in learning, but I wasn't motivated at that time. My husband is very good at languages--he taught himself ancient Greek and he's using a program that makes learning a language fun and easy to advance for Spanish. He's constantly asking me to join him in the program, but with writing, piano, and art in my daily life taking up most of my time and energy, I'm spread a little thin. In mid-2024, I started using this language program. My Spanish "score" is currently at 20. Six months ago it was 0.)

#4: Learning. Just learning. Like most people, I have a lot of random interests that I've never had a lot of time to explore--learning to sing professionally (I do have natural talent in this regard, luckily) as an accompaniment to playing piano, professional photography to help my illustrating, finding out more about unique periods of history (Medieval specifically), geography, space, art culture, and science. The place where I got my art DVDs offers courses in a lot of these disciplines that interest me. I don't currently have a lot of time, but I've already mentioned that I don't care for silence. Usually I fill it with music or art lessons. However, there are frequent slots in my day where I could easily be listening to a lecture, learning more about any one of these random interests. I always want to be learning new things that may inspire any of my other abilities to new heights of creativity.

Next week we'll talk about strategies in taking the next step toward achieving the goals in your life you're most passionate about seeing fulfilled.

"Seize the life and the day will follow!" ~Linda Derkez

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Thursday, January 05, 2023

Facing a New Year

Happy New Year! -- even though it is an arbitrary date. Why not the precise day of the winter solstice instead of over a week later? Or, better yet, the spring equinox? The ancient Romans originally set the beginning of the year in March, the debut of spring, which has a certain fitness. That year contained ten months of 30 or 31 days each. Wikipedia has a detailed article about the changes and reforms in the Roman calendar over many centuries:

Roman Calendar

Earth's movement through space has the inconvenient feature that a full revolution around the sun (year) isn't evenly divisible by the moon cycles (months). So having twelve months in a year doesn't work properly; days are left over, making each month, except February, longer than a moon cycle. The original Roman calendar had "intercalary" clusters of days or even whole "extra" months, depending on which era we're looking at. According to Wikipedia, "winter was left as an unassigned span of days," later replaced by January and February. Moreover, in the early calendar, weeks had eight days, a figure that doesn't fit properly into the phases of the moon or divide equally into 30 days.

To make matters worse, the solar calendar doesn't have an even number of days, requiring insertion of "leap days" at fixed intervals.

In ancient Rome as well as some other societies, the intercalary days were considered unlucky. Is it unlucky to be born on February 29? Even if leap year babies, like the hero of PIRATES OF PENZANCE (who got trapped by that technical point in his apprenticeship contract), have far fewer birthdays than the number of years in their lives, I suppose they still get annual birthday celebrations. I sort of like the idea of a cluster of "unassigned" days in a year. They could be holidays with no obligations of any kind.

As I've mentioned in the past, I don't make "resolutions" anymore. I do set "goals," modest, mainly short-term ones. My immediate goal in January, as usual, is to finish my annual vampire fiction bibliography update and send it to interested parties before the end of the month. In terms of writing goals, I have two more "orphaned" (by a company that went out of business) erotic paranormal romance novellas to revise slightly and submit to my new publisher who's been re-releasing them. I plan to re-release on my own a spicy, humorous paranormal romance work with Lovecraftian elements that consists of a linked pair of stories from the same former publisher. With a different publisher, I have one older paranormal romance novel, non-erotic, awaiting re-release. Although I have no new fiction in mind at present, that situation could always change later in the year.

In other areas of life, I aim to get back to riding my stationary bike a full 29-30 minutes in each session rather than slacking off to barely above 25 minutes, as I've done too often lately. Also, I tentatively agreed to sign up for the coffee hour duty roster at church, and I plan to follow through with that activity. I'd like to declare a goal of catching up with the dozens of manga volumes in my to-read stack, but that's probably a fantasy under the category of, "If I can't die until I've read all these, I'm destined to live forever." The collection is infinite, because several new manga are added every month. There is, however, some possibility of catching up with the prose books in the pile before they multiply beyond control, because I usually manage to keep up and got behind only within the past couple of months.

Wishing you the best of luck with your goals for 2023. And, to repeat one of my favorite quotes from MASH, "Here's to the new year. May she be a durn sight better than the last one."

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Friday, December 23, 2022

Two Crucial Writing Goal Sheets by Karen S Wiesner

Writer's Craft Article by Karen S. Wiesner

Two Crucial Writing Goal Sheets

Based on FIRST DRAFT OUTLINE (formerly titled FIRST DRAFT IN 30 DAYS)

Once you become a published author, the pressure to maintain the standard of quality with every book is crucial. Publishers and readers will expect that, as you the author have to of yourself. That’s why it’s absolutely essential to become a productive writer as soon as you can--ideally, before you sell your first book. You’ll be confident about what you can do, and you’ll have more to offer any publisher who contracts for your books.

A good rule of thumb for unpublished writers is to stay one or two projects ahead of your submissions. If you’re a published author, you should stay one or two projects ahead of your releases. Three to six months before a new year, you need to be thinking--or preferably working--on next year's projects.

Writing Goals

The purpose of a writing goal sheet is to help you determine how much time you need to spend turning your formatted outline into a manuscript draft. To complete this goal sheet, you’ll need to have a rough estimate of how much you can accomplish on a daily basis. As a general rule, writing at least one scene a day, regardless of how long or short that scene ends up, is ideal. If you’re prone to writer’s block, the chances of burning out or hitting a roadblock are significantly less when you’re brainstorming on one scene a day instead of two or more. Furthermore, each scene must be written with its own mood and objective--it can be difficult to switch gears in the middle of your writing session when you have to move on to the next scene. If you stick to writing one scene every day, you’ll rarely feel you’re doing too much or too little. If your scenes are consistently too long or short, you may need to re-evaluate whether your pacing is on track, and make any necessary adjustments.

For some authors, it works best to write a certain number of pages a day instead of a scene or more a day. Personally, I find this method to be inefficient, though I know everyone's different and what works for one writer is unimaginable to another and vice versa. Writing page by page, even if you’re going strong, do you stop at 10 pages using this method? If you’re not feeling inspired at all, do you quit at 10 pages, even if you’re in the middle of a scene or, heck, in the middle of a sentence? How does that work? Regardless of whether it's not really that dramatic where a page-by-pager cuts off for the day, to me if you haven't finished the scene, you are essentially in the middle of something that has a very specific mood. To come back the next day (or whenever) is to interrupt that mood, which you'll have to start from scratch to get back into when you return. It would drive me crazy to work that way. However, if you choose to write a certain number of pages per day, your goal sheet would be based on the projected length of the book. The chart below will help you estimate the number of pages in your complete manuscript based on the number of words you’re shooting for:

(estimated 250 words per page)

50,000 words = 200 pages

60,000 words = 240 pages

70,000 words = 280 pages

80,000 words = 320 pages

90,000 words = 360 pages

100,000 words = 400 pages

Therefore, if you estimate your book will be 50,000 words and you want to write 10 pages a day (not taking holidays or weekends into account), your goal sheet might look something like this:

1/1: write 10 pages

1/2: write 10 pages

1/3: write 10 pages

1/4: write 10 pages

1/5: write 10 pages

Test yourself for a week or a couple weeks by writing however many pages you can and taking notes on what you accomplish each day. At the end of the time, figure out your average number of pages per day. Then add a page or two to your daily page goal to challenge yourself.

It might sound impossible to accurately predict how long it’ll take you to complete a project, especially down to the day (assuming life doesn’t throw you any radical curves). But there is a method for doing just that that anyone can use. You need to complete the following steps before you can make your prediction:

1. Develop a solid idea of how much you’re able to write per working day. (This method works best if you write scene by scene rather than page by page.)

2. Determine whether you’ll work weekends or holidays, and what your schedule (personal, writing, and your other job, if you have one) is like for the time period in which you’ll be working on this particular book.

3. Complete a formatted outline, with scenes divided.

First, make sure you allow the outline sufficient shelf-time before you begin writing. Next, plan to give yourself at least a week or two before you start writing to go over your outline and make sure it’s still solid.

Using a blank sheet of paper and your formatted outline, make a list of the scenes within the book, putting one scene on each line. Obviously, these scenes will come from your formatted outline. You can simply make a sequential list of scenes, as shown below:

scene 1

scene 2

scene 3

scene 4

scene 5

Or you can specify chapter and scene number:

Prologue

chapter 1, scene 1

chapter 1, scene 2

chapter 2, scene 1

chapter 2, scene 2

Figure out how many working days you’ll have in a month. (I generally don’t write on weekends, so for me, most months amount to approximately twenty working days.) Now, get out your calendar or planner--whatever you use to schedule your days. Any standard calendar of the upcoming months will work, but if you have events (dentist appointment or whatever) planned during the time you’ll be working, you’ll want to take that into account on your writing goal sheet.

Decide the date you want to begin writing and mark it down on your writing goal sheet next to the first scene. If you’re writing one scene per day, you will then write the next date by the second scene, etc. Don’t forget to skip weekends and holidays if you don’t plan to write on those days.

8/9: prologue

8/10: chapter 1, scene 1

8/11: scene 2

8/12: chapter 2, scene 1

8/13: scene 2

By the time you’ve put a date next to each scene in your book, you know exactly when you’ll be done with the first draft.

It’s my experience, after outlining and writing close to 150 books, that an outline will be approximately a quarter of the size of your finished story. There certainly can be a wide variance because every project is different and some authors write consistently short or long scenes. The list below is an estimate of how the number of scenes in an outline will translate to novel length, assuming there are roughly 250 words per page:

up to 20 scenes in an outline = a novella-length work of 7,000–15,000 words

30–40 scenes in the outline = 50,000–75,000 words

41–70 scenes in the outline = 76,000–90,000 words

71 or more scenes in the outline = 100,000+ words

Here are some examples of how I figured out my own schedule estimations:

Vows & the Vagabond

· 46 scenes at 20 working days per month

· 2 months, 6 days to write an 80,000 word novel, not including editing, polishing, and proposal

· budget 2 1⁄2 to 3 months for project completion

No Ordinary Love

· 68 scenes at 20 working days per month

· 3 months, 8 days to write a 90,000 word novel, not including editing, polishing, and proposal

· budget 3 1⁄2 to 4 months for project completion

Tears on Stone

· 74 scenes at 20 working days per month

· 3 months, 14 days to write a 110,000-word novel, not including editing, polishing, and proposal

· budget 4 months for project completion

You’ll notice I budgeted some extra time at the end of the writing process--that's for editing and polishing.

As soon as an outline is complete, you can work up a writing goal sheet, taking into account shelf-time and a week or two for outline review and revision.

Yearly Goals

Once you have a writing goal sheet, you can then translate the information from your writing goal sheet directly into a yearly goal sheet, something like:

Yearly Goals With New Writing Goal

WHAT I want to accomplish	WHEN I want to accomplish it
Write Vows & the Vagabond	January 10-February 26
Write Tears on Stone	March 8-June 8
Write No Ordinary Love	July 3-September 4

Accurately estimating the time you’ll spend on various projects during the year will be very helpful when you’re filling out your yearly goal sheets. If you want to see examples of detailed, multiyear goal sheets, visit my WIP page here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/works-in-progress.html.

Remember: Being productive should not mean being rushed. If a story needs more time, give it all it needs--as long as you continue to meet your daily goals. If you’re a beginner, you may need to be more flexible, but having personal goals can help you no matter what stage you’re in. Should you find that you’re daily goals make you feel rushed, take time to evaluate whether you’re trying to do too much. Would one scene per day be more manageable for you than two? Be more flexible with yearly goals than daily goals.