Lesson Learned

The first week with my new writing group (aka “The Author Hive Mind”) went great. I started the week writing my very aggressive goals:

1.      Finish monthly newsletter and send

2.      Submit two short stories to six publications

3.      Edit 40 pages of my novel-in-progress

Back to editing my novel!

In addition to working when the group was offline, I attended four (out of 14 offered!) write-in sessions where we met on Zoom, said our goals for the session, then connected at the end to see how we did. I also hopped into a Planning meeting last Monday to review accomplishments and set new goals for this week.

In that Planning meeting, I realized that I completed only my first goal. I did submit two short stories to one literary magazine contest, not six. For goal #3, I edited eight pages, not 40. On the plus side, I cranked out a new short story that I absolutely love and think has great potential for publication.

So where did things go awry?

I realized that although I set the goals at the beginning of the week, I never looked at them again! By the following Monday, I had forgotten exactly what those goals were! How could I achieve goals, if I completely lost sight of them?

Doh!

No wonder my book is languishing on the sidelines. No wonder weeks go by without touching it. It’s easy to get distracted and get the easy and fun things done (my newsletter! my new short story!). It’s hard to commit and get through the slog of editing a 300+ page book. And the edits I'm working on aren't simple. My book needs a lot of work. It needs some reorganization, needs the pacing increased, and lots of loose ends need to be tied up. That stuff’s not fun. But I have to commit to this work -- not just say it and forget it -- for me to get to the next step. 

Thank you to the Author Hive for teaching me an important lesson! And guess who finished all of last week's goals (that included working on the book?)??

How do you stay on track with your goals? I'd love to hear your tips! Leave me a comment below!