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If you’re also an aspiring writer, you might have some works written already. Whether or not they’re publishing-worthy is another question, but it’s not an important one— your primary goals should include actually having a portfolio of your writing.
I’m no where near claiming authorship of the next New York Times bestseller, but that doesn’t mean I can’t feel proud of what I’ve written so far.
I’ve been wanting to write for as long as I can remember. One of my earliest works is a poem about the colour purple, and all its literal and figurative connotations. I wrote that shit when I was 10 years old, and it wound up laminated by the teacher who ran that Language Arts Enrichment bonus class. Seriously— laminated. As in “covered with protective plastic”. I’m pretty sure that sonbitch is in the deep recesses of my mother’s basement, and I always thought “good, it can stay there. Or maybe in the trash. Whatever works.” Now I’ll admit that I’m glad to know it’s out there somewhere because it’ll be a good representation someday of how far I’ve come. After all, it’s important to remember your roots.
In later years, I went on to write FanFiction (some abysmal and some pretty decent), and a short story that was a fairy tale I’d written about algebra. What can I say? I was, and am, a little nerdling. It was littered with puns, and featured the tangled love lives of Princess Scalene, and Sir… Cumference. SERIOUSLY. This shit was gold.
Honestly, I was so proud of the things I wrote when I was in grade school. I went on to do a Bachelor’s of Arts in French and English, and my pride in my own writing went downhill from there. Writing research papers took the fun out of it for me. And there’s only so far you can get in university when you make the title of every paper you write into a pun— eventually you’re expected to get serious.
Y’know what though? Being serious is fucking boring.
I decided to tell my story here, in the hopes that someone out there might hear it and decide to act on their own passions and desires before they get stuck in an admin job they hate or writing nothing but non-fiction when their dream is to write children’s books. I’m 27 now, and for most of my 20s I’ve been dragging my feet about writing because university made it lackluster to me. I let my creative spark go out, and I decided it’s high time to reignite it.
I’m one of those people who comes up with another “life goal” every other week. Sometimes it’s to become a teacher, sometimes it’s to get a master’s degree in creative writing, sometimes it’s to quit my day job and edit freelance, but the thing that ALWAYS is a life goal of mine is just to be creative. There’s nothing wrong with working your day job and pursuing your hobbies during your time off. What you don’t want to do, however, is to work your day job, come home, eat dinner, watch Friends/The Great British Baking Show/Family Feud, realize three hours have gone by, and that it’s too late and you’re too tired to work on your side projects and goals, and just wait until it’s time to go to bed— then rinse and repeat. Don’t be like me and get sucked into that rut. This is your official warning that you won’t feel great doing that for too long.
Make time for the things that will feed your soul, and that will allow you to follow your dreams. Don’t you roll your eyes at me and say “listen bitch, dreams don’t pay the bills,” because they CAN. And they will, if you put in the time. What’s the point in spending 45-50 YEARS of your life doing work that you don’t enjoy? That’s living to work, not working to live. If your soul is starving, like mine was, please take some of my advice to heart. Make time for your goals.
My childhood and adolescent experience in writing may not have ever made me money, but it made me hungry for success in that field. Every time I get an email from fanfiction.net or Archive of Our Own that someone has added my story to their favourites, or given it “kudos”, I get a little thrill. Eventually I had to understand that regardless of how many other careers I randomly decided I’d pursue, the one constant thing that made me excited was writing.
So, that’s my goal. I was actually asked recently in a coffee shop if I’m an author, when someone noticed I was writing. That moment when I replied “not yet”, was so exciting to me. In the past, I’d leave it at “oh, no, I wish!” But now I’m WORKING on it. And fuck, that’s exhilarating. Acknowledging your goals and reminding yourself of them will inspire you to work harder at them!
It’s okay to not know exactly what you want to write, produce, create, etc, right away. It’s just important to dabble in it. I’m doing blog writing largely just to get back into the habit of routine writing (though also to hopefully inspire someone out there!), with the intention of adding the plotting/planning of my novel idea into my routine very soon. Previously, when I’ve let myself dive fully into the plotting/planning environment, my lack of routine will usually mean that I work on it for an hour or two one day, and then completely forget about it or neglect it until I have no idea what it was I was working on.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to make a schedule for when you’re going to work on the things that make your heart feel full.
I’ll let you in on mine for inspiration.
Blog Posting: Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
Podcasting: Working on scripts on Saturdays. Recording time to be scheduled very soon.
Fiction Writing: Okay, you’ve caught me here. I haven’t got this scheduled yet. I’m talking a big game for someone who hasn’t actually started the thing that this blog is supposed to inspire, but cut me some slack, it’s been a week since this page launched! Fiction writing will officially be worked on at least on Saturdays. Likely more, but I’ll finalize my schedule this week.
Now that we have a schedule, we need to list our goals.
Blog Posting: My goal is to keep up a consistent routine of writing, while simultaneously inspiring others around me to develop similar habits.
Podcasting: Pretty much the same as above, but with the added bonus of exercising my infamous “gift of gab”.
Fiction Writing: My goal is to have a first draft of my novel written by the end of January 2022. Aggressive, given that all I have is a tentative outline, but if I shut up and write now, I think it’s achievable.
The blog posting and podcasting goals can stand on their own, but the novel goal obviously needs some structure.
Today is August 27th, 2021, so if I want to have 60,000 words (approximately) written for this draft, I’ll need to write 10,000 words per month, of 2,500 words per week. Once it’s broken down into smaller increments, it looks SO much less daunting!
So, now it’s your turn! What are your goals? What is your schedule/timeline for achieving them? Let me know in the comments below! And if you don’t already know, shut up and decide now!