Day 20--Goal Reflection

The end of this year approaches, and of course, that means a new year beginning. And for those who set goals (and that should be everyone!) the new year means new goals written in the back of our desk calendars. Or on a sheet tacked to the bulletin board. As long as they're written down somewhere you can look at them and be reminded.

Now is a really good time to review your 2010 goals. Seriously consider those goals, the actions you took to achieve them and how they compare to what you envisioned as the result. Look at each goal separately. What did you do well? What could have been done better?

Most importantly, consider what prevented you from accomplishing an incomplete goal. Is there a price you weren't willing to pay or changes you weren't willing to consider to make the goal happen?

Are your goals still important to you? We are constantly and continually changing beings. What we want, or think we want, changes along with us. Do you continue to put a goal on your list because you think you should--or is it something you really want?

Use these last days of December to reflect on this year's goals. Then when you turn your calendar to the first of January, you'll be better able to achieve your new goals.

Goals, Calendars and Dachshunds

I’ve served as the Goals Guru for HWG for a number of years. We’ve experienced a whole slew of ideas designed to help Heartlandians meet their writing goals. But even though the writing derbies, challenges, visual representations and bookshelves have gone through a variety of changes, one goals idea has remained constant.

The calendar.

I don’t remember how many years ago I first brought up the idea of using a desk calendar for keeping track of goals. The concept has been successful for some, and not so for others (like any writing tool!). Let me explain a bit about the Heartlandian calendar concept.

First…find a desk style or engagement calendar that shows one week per page. Find one that has pictures that are meaningful for you. Doesn’t matter what makes your smile, or dream, or encourages you…find that calendar. For me, it’s a dachshund calendar. My brother bought me my first one, and had provided most of them since then. Last year, neither of us got the calendar, so I thought I’d try a different design. Along came Paula Deen. Now, I love Paula, and the calendar was great with recipes, stories and pictures, but it wasn’t what my creative mind needed for writing. And, my writing suffered. This year with my doxies, I’m more on track.

Now that you have a calendar, what should you use it for? Anything you want to.

Donna says... “I use my calendar to record time spent writing, editing or researching. I also record my page counts with times to give myself an idea of the productivity level I can achieve when I sit my butt in the chair and work at it. I also record any contests judged or entered, critiques attended or given on-line, workshops attended or taken on-line, meetings attended, etc. In the back of my calendar I keep a list of all of the books that I've read during the year (recorded as I read them). In the front of my calendar I keep a list of my writing goals for reference. My calendar always sits on my desk by my monitor, as a silent reminder that I need to sit down and get to work."

That covers a lot, doesn’t it? In my calendar I have my goals broken down into different categories, lists of editing I’ve done, contests I’ve judged (It’s so great to see when one of your entries makes finals--or more), contests entered, contacts made AND the books I’ve read. This list helps me see how much I have read, I make notations for favorite authors to look for again and whether the book is fiction or non-fiction. So, use the calendar in whatever way it works for you. Oh, and use it ONLY for writing!

Besides having the pictures or quotes for inspiration, using the calendar can be a remarkably visual for your progress. Stickers are a popular way to show you’ve met your daily or weekly goals. Take a look at Cheryl St. John’s writing calendar.

One year we used colored sticky tags in a set of five colors. Each Heartlandian chose their favorite color and the least favorite. The fave color was obviously for achieving a goal. The least favorite--for those weeks when you didn’t quite reach that page or word count, or whatever your goal was for the week. Other colors of flags were designated for meetings, classes, any number of writing related things. Placed along the edge of the page, these flags show how consistent you are in meeting goals.

I encourage you to consider using a desk calendar for your writing. Post your own ideas here on the blog. Perhaps your idea will help another writer!

To close, Cheryl says…”My datebook is my lifeline. I keep track of deadlines, submissions, page progress, appointments, blog schedules, goals, my online class and just about everything. My goals are printed in the front, and the books I've read this year are listed in the back. I'm already out of sync because I don't have a 2010 datebook yet, and I have things scheduled into the new year. A new one is a must on my to-be-shopped-for list.”

Let’s go calendar shopping!

Minano--getting ready part one

Whenever facing an extended writing challenge--like NaNoWriMo or our own Minano--good preparation is essential. Here's a few thoughts to get you started.

**Make a daily goal. There's thirty days in November (If I remember the rhyme correctly). However, for numerous reasons, it's difficult for many of us to write every day. So take a good, honest look at the calendar. There are plenty of activites you might be able to put off, but some events demand that portion of your time. If you're cooking Thanksgiving dinner for family, you may not be able to squeeze in words to make your daily goal. So plan around those days.

Now, go to your calendar and X out days you know you won't write. It doesnt' matter the reason. Then count up the days left for writing. Take your goal (for Minano it's 25,000 words) and divide it by the number of available days.

For instance--if you plan on writing 20 days, to reach the goal youll need to write 1,250 words per day. The satisfaction of continually meeting a daily goal will propel you forward, even after the challenge is done!

**Take a hint from Scouting and Be Prepared. NaNoWriMo encourages participants to work on a totally new novel. For Minano, we're simply going for word count--it doesn't matter if your words are on a new project or you're continuing your current work in progress. Either way do all of your normal pre-writing before November one. Know your characters and their inciting incidents. Plotter? Get your charts or notecards filled out. Write by the seat of your pants? There's always some pre-thinking that happens before you start a story--even if you only name your characters or title your story.

The point is--when November one rolls around, all you need to do is sit at the computer and begin.

**Is that all there is to it? Oh, of course not. Come back in a few days for more thoughts on surviving an extended writing challenge. And by all means, if you have tried and true suggestions or survival techniques (like the best chocolate to keep by the computer) please share them here!

BIAW North and South

By the time I reach the fourth or fifth day of a BIAW, the energy and the power that comes from the muse can go one of two ways...

North, bringing lots of new ideas, excitement and words...

or South, like the well had totally dried up. There ain't no more words.

If you're heading north right now-woo hoo! You go! Drive those words to your goal destination. And further if you can.

Falling behind? The words just are not there for you? Try this. Just write nonsense Write something like 'I am the best, most prolific writer in the world.' Write it over and over and over. Eventually, your brain will kick in and your story should begin to flow again. Yep, this is positive affirmation time. Avoid any negative statements, even in your rambling. Writing, 'I can't write today.' is only reinforcing your not writing! So that's what your brain, characters, computer, even your soul comes to believe.

Belief is a huge, essential componant to being a successful author.

And in meeting your BIAW goal!

Today's photos are compliments of John Shaver.

BIAW-WADD

Distractions. We've all got 'em. Unless we write in a vacuum, there's going to be something, someone, some idea that's going to distract us from our BIAW (or any writing) goal.

From something as simple as--for me right now the washer just quit so it's time to be distracted by laundry--to discovering you've wasted an hour on the internet when you went in to just check on this one little fact--or you need to read all the blogs/twitters/facebook wall/yada yada yada. (Why are you reading this blog now? Shouldn't you be writing? )

Distractions happen. It's how we deal with them that's important. Both now during a book in a week, and later when we step back into our 'normal' writing mode.

I will be the first to admit I'm fairly well addicted to email and the internet. Although I don't tweet often, I can get so caught up in reading others' posts--well, where does the time go. I have to make a conscious effort to stay away! I try to use checking email as a reward for a certain period of writing or some other task. When you can, group your distractions into a bunch and deal with them all at once rather than one at a time. Put a 'do not disturb' sign on your door--and a mental one on your writing mind.

Understand that distractions happen. And all do have some level of importance...although it's easy to assign a higher degree of importance to something when we want to be distracted. Such as looking at pictures of Indian motorcycles. Or... need I say more about him?

WADD? I know many of you share this condition with me. Writers' Attention Deficiency Dis--oooh, shiney!

Or, as Dug the dog (in Pixar's UP) puts it--Squirrel! (Did you know Dug has his own Facebook fan page? How's that for a distraction?)

BIAW--Writing Without Editing

Writing without editing?

Yep, that can be a tough one sometimes. Just rememeber that your next step will be editing, so it's not like you'll never get the chance.

Some tricks...

*Imagine locking your internal editor in a closet. Whop her up side the head with a two by four and stuff her mouth with a thick gag. Whatever it takes to shut her up.

*turn your font color to white. It'll look like you're not doing anything, but you'll have words when you change the color back. Now, I've never tried this--and with my tendency to have my fingers on the wrong keys...well, not so sure how that would work. There are those who swear by this technique.

*rearrange your screen so you can only see a few lines of what your working on. (use the double-headed arrow thingie to increase the size of the task tray on the bottom of your screen (if you're in windows). I have an alpha smart word processor I use sometimes--it shows only four lines of type at a time. Makes it difficult to go back and 'fix'.

*If you get stuck on something--a word, something you need to research, anything like that--make some notation like ### or **** or (word) and go on. Something else to work on--LATER.

*Be strong! Set your mind to writing fast, knowing next week you can edit!

BIAW Sunday

Hey *lizzie, I can only participate in the biaw for 3 days...
Wow! That's okay. Participate when you can--just report your goal to the loop and how you do on the days you can participate.

Hey *lizzie, I wanna make my goal for timed writing.
That's okay too. just let us know.

hey *lizzie. I want to participate but I'm shy and I don't want others to know how silly my goal seems.
Opps, that's not okay. Part of the biaw experience is being accountable for your goal! Whether you make your pages or not!

hey *lizzie. So I want to write five pages this week. What's so cool about that?
You know, those who have reported their goals are aiming for page counts that already total over half of a book on our growth chart! I'm excited to see how many pages Connie's timed writing will add to that. I'm hoping--no I am expecting us to add enough pages to the growth chart to equal one bar. That's 400 pages. We're over half way there. Your five pages could be the ones to put us over that unofficial goal.

hey *lizzie, count me in
Brilliant! Just send me your goals and how long you can participate this week. Check in every day. Watch the HWG blog for updates!

Book Growth Chart

For the past several years, Heartlandians have reported their freshly written--or heavily edited--pages for the bookshelf. This year, the goals guru had a different idea.

A GROWTH CHART!

Take a look at this year's chart. Pages have been collected since January 1, 2009.

Each colored bar equals 400 manuscript pages--enough to equal a 100,000 word book! Count 'em. Go on, count 'em.

Heartlandians have reported enough new and heavily edited pages to equal 15 books. And that's only those who report pages. And that's only through June!

Imagine what the rest of the year will bring! Will the goals guru have to add on to the growth chart? That would be... Brilliant!

Click on the picture to make it bigger and take a look at the book covers lining the sides of the chart. These books have been released this year--all works of HWG authors. Mighty fine work, ladies!