Goal For It!
Author: Cheryl Martin
Original Publication Date in Love Notes: May 2007

Only one catch. It was April 30. No, that doesn’t mean I was about to turn into a toad or that I’d found our taxes stuck down in the couch cushions.

No, it was a day of reckoning for me. If you don’t know this about journalists, we have a problem with deadlines. It may extend to all writers, but it's a truth I’ve seen at every newspaper I’ve ever worked.

Journalists grumble about deadlines. Without deadlines, we don’t work at all and just sit around watching television or playing solitaire on the computer.

Since Nationals, I’ve been setting monthly goals for my fiction writing. With all the writing I do for my day job, it had gotten too easy to come home and crash instead of moving ahead with my novel.

For April, I’d set a number of pages I wanted to have written. Only one problem. I hadn’t had time to sit at my computer at home and write. I’d been working on my Neo at my allergist’s office, on the couch while Caroline watched “Cinderella” for the twentieth time and while I traveled to Nashville for the Music City Romance Writers meeting. I’d been writing, but I didn’t know if I had met my page count. I started the download from my Neo and went to do laundry.

When I checked back on my computer, I felt like I’d run a marathon and was still breathing. Five pages over. I celebrated with a friend via e-mail and set another goal for May. The new book will get written, one page and one goal at a time.

Tips

♥ Start today. There’s no time like the present. Procrastination is not your friend.

♥ Make the goal realistic but challenging. If you struggle to find time to write a page a day, setting a goal of twenty pages a day might be a bit much -- unless you’ve taken a leave of absence from your job, sent your family away and hired someone to carry in Starbucks three times a day.

♥ Be accountable to someone who’s willing to bug you about it. Someone who will hold your feet to the fire.

♥ Celebrate every goal you reach. Chocolate is a good way. A bubble bath, a new pair of shoes, a slice of chocolate cheesecake, a manicure, an afternoon nap. All that matters is recognizing the accomplishment.

♥ As soon as one goal is met, it’s time to set another. And it might be time to make this one a little more challenging. If you’ve met your page count for the last couple of months, add five pages to your goal, or ten pages.

♥ If you miss a goal one month, don’t beat up on yourself. Just set another goal and start writing and keep writing.

Love Notes, the official monthly newsletter of Music City Romance Writers, is provided to paying members free of charge. If you are an MCRW member and would like to submit an article to Love Notes, visit the main newsletter page for more information. If you would like to reprint one of these articles in your RWA chapter newsletter, please give proper credit to both the author and the original source. For any other uses, please contact the president.