Writing Goals

With the New Year now upon us, I've seen countless posts about writing goals for 2017. I usually have a handful, overly ambitious goals that I never reach because I expect too much from myself.

This year, I kept things real. I made a simple goal: write every day. I didn't even set a word count. I just need to write something (though grocery lists and the like do not count!).

I bought myself a shiny new notebook. My hope is to fill it with a new poem for every day of 2017. Five days in and I haven't fallen off of the wagon yet.

I also started a new monthly fiction challenge with some friends of mine. We've pledged four flash fiction stories for every month. I've written two of those so far for January, so I'm off to a strong start there too.

My biggest challenge this year is going to be submissions. I need to dust off all of these works in progress and actually submit them to places. That means I'm in for a ton of editing. For some reason, the edits are more daunting to me than the new work. I'm considering hiring an editor as a belated Christmas present to myself. It might be just the push I need to whip that book into shape and toss it onto the query-go-round.

Reading back over this post, it seems I may have some pretty ambitious goals for myself this year after all. I know I can do this though. And so can all of you. Let's all knock our personal goals out of the park this year.