From the Archive – New Year’s Resolutions
It’s that time of year again. New Year. A new year. A new start. It’s the time of the year when a lot of people make grand resolutions to change something major in their life. For most it’s some kind of bad habit or a means to get healthier. For many writers, it’s also a time to vow to do, be, or sell better.
The problem I have with resolutions is simply the wording. Resolutions are notoriously set up to fail. Wikipedia has a statistic saying only 12% of New Year’s resolutions are kept. Why start the New Year that way? This is a clean slate, let’s set goals rather than resolutions, yes, it’s a semantic distinction, but one that could make a difference.
What’s the key to this? I think, no matter what the goal or resolution, the key comes down to attainability. So many people set these lofty resolutions for huge changes that there’s no possible away to attain it in any kind of appreciable manner. So when you’re looking to redefine your writing habits, keep this in mind.
Every writer I know wants to burn up the keyboard with every turning of the calendar. However, if you – the writer – have a full time job, a significant other, any kind of family, or friends (you know, LIFE) then it may not be a realistic goal to promise you’re going to write 1000 or more words a day, X number of short stories a month/year, and/or multiple novels before the next resolution.
The name of the game is attainability. Make your goal to write SOMETHING every day, even if it’s 50 – 100 words. Maybe readjust the word counts to include editing and actually submitting the stories, articles, or novels you’ve written. And notice I said submit not sell. Why? Because no writer can control how many pieces they’re going to sell in a year. You can write the most amazing piece of fiction or non-fiction ever and if you don’t hit the right market at the right time, it won’t sell.
Control is the other part of the resolution or goal. It has to be something you can do yourself that doesn’t rely on someone else to make happen. You can resolve to make a sale or get a job or whatever – and you can go to great lengths to make that happen (submitting constantly, applying to jobs, etc) but at the end of the day, the success of your resolution falls on the decision of someone else.
I’m not saying there is no place for resolutions or goals. I have set myself goals this year. But I’ve taken my own advice. I try to set attainable, controllable goals for myself. I have commitments that need to be kept and projects to start and finish. I need some new short fiction, my backlog is falling behind. I have a novel in the submissions process, so I have new novel(s) to write to fill the void. But I know if I said, “I’m writing 1000 words a day from now on.” It’s not going to happen.
It’s like a diet. By forcing myself into doing something I know is going to be difficult, I’m setting myself up to “cheat” and fall into that downward spiral. Let’s not do that to ourselves this year. Let’s set attainable goals and fill 2009 with success.