Setting Goals for Your Writing Career

Without goals, none of us would get very far. We’d pretty much be stuck, going in circles.

We set goals if we want to lose weight, make a major purchase, go to a concert, take a trip—and we work towards the goal. Do you set goals for your writing? These don’t have to be major goals in the beginning, but you need to set some goals so you can stay on target with where you want to take your writing.

There are many types of writers who visit Blogging Tips each week. This article will try to address goals for three different groups of writers: Freelance, Bloggers, and Novelists.

You will need to set short term and long term goals. You can also set mid term goals if that suits your needs. Short term goals would include things you want to accomplish in 1 to 3 months, mid-term would include 3 to 6 months and long term would include 6 to 12 months. That doesn’t mean you can’t set extended goals either—those from 1 to 5 years.

Remember, your goals may change over time so your list will need to be updated on a regular basis. Also, as you accomplish each goal you will want to set a new one to work towards.

FREELANCE GOALS:

Short Term:

• Brainstorm three ideas.
• Research and Interviews.
• Prepare query letters for 5 markets.
• Brainstorm new ideas.
• Send out X-amount of queries.
• Get three to five rejections.
• Acquire paying assignment.

Long Term:

• Get published in major magazine.*
• Break into market I’m passionate about.
• Obtain regular position as a columnist. **

*This can be more specific; women’s, men’s, health, fitness, technology, etc.
**This can be a monthly magazine or a newspaper or other publication, even an online publication.

BLOGGER GOALS:

Short Term:

• Write daily post for blog.
• Get indexed in search engines.
• Increase value.
• Increase traffic.
• Leave real comments on blogs you read. *

*Simply stating this is a good post is not a real comment. Tell the writer what you think about it in specific terms—not just a general, “I enjoyed this post,” to get a link to your site. You should also acknowledge the writer by name.

Long term:

• Acquire guest bloggers on regular basis.
• Write guest posts for other blogs.
• Double traffic.
• Weekly or monthly newsletter.
• Attract advertisers.
• Develop relationships with other bloggers. *

*This goes back to writing real comments and possibly even personal emails regarding work and business. You can’t develop a relationship with comments like, “This is good material.” Go the extra mile and tell the writer WHY it’s good material.

NOVELISTS GOALS:

Short Term:

• Brainstorm story idea.
• Research idea.
• Outline story.
• Write story.
• Send out queries.
• Get X-number of rejections.

Long Term:

• Edit, rewrite, polish novel.
• Send out X-number of queries.
• Get published.
• Start new novel.
• Get more rejections.

You will notice that getting rejections is included in these goals. They are inevitable so you may as well go ahead and expect them. Each rejection is one step closer to publication. The more rejections you get—the more you’re submitting and getting your name out there.

After you’ve sat down and outlined your goals, you need to post them where you’ll see them everyday. Your goals are no good if you don’t see them and work at them.

Written by Patti Stafford from Patti Stafford
Posted on October 28th, 2009 and filed under Writing
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