Before I started Write Good Books, I kept a daily blog on my author site. One of my regular gimmicks there was to begin every month with a post listing my goals for the month and ending every month with a progress report on whether or not I reached those goals.
That feature didn’t carry over as I migrated the blog here, since this is a different type of site, but with the halfway point of 2015 just a few days away, I thought it would be fun to share my writing goals for the next six months.
For me, my writing career is split four ways. I view each part equally important, even though the time spent working on each is not equally distributed.
With that said, here are my goals for each of the four parts of my writing, each with the same deadline of December 31, 2015.
1. Novels
Goal: Finish one.
By that, I’m not talking “finish a first draft.” I mean have a second novel complete and ready to query by the end of the year. I’ve got a first draft that I’ve been working on rewriting, and I’ve also got a new novel I’ve been outlining. The problem is that I keep going back and forth between which one I want to work on more, but before July 4, I’m going to force myself to pick one and stick with it.
2. Short Stories
Goal: Finish two.
With everything else going on this year, I’ve really been neglecting short stories. And that’s okay. There aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything, so sometimes time has to dictate priorities. But right now I’ve only got three short stories under review. I have a folder with fifteen WIPs, so there is not reason I can’t take a weekend or two and finish two of those so that I can at least be shopping around five short stories by the end off the year.
3. Write Good Books
Goal: Mystery Project
Okay, in this case, I’m not going to tell you my goal. I know that sounds hokey, but I have something new planned for this site and I don’t want to start hyping it until the final details are fleshed out. Just know this: Something cool is in the works and it should happen before the end of the year.
4. Theme of Absence
Goal: Double the monthly traffic
This one is tricky because I don’t have a specific plan to reach this goal. I do have a specific number, however. I’m going take the number of visits from January 1 – June 30 and double them. That is the goal. I am toying with some ideas to increase traffic, but nothing is set in stone yet. The addition of Betty on art has been great and I would like to find more artists to contribute to the site.
And that’s it. It will be a busy six months, but nobody ever said anything you really want in life comes easy.
What do you hope to accomplish by the end of the year?
