Booked to the Gills by Aisley Oliphant

Author:Aisley Oliphant
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aisley Oliphant

SETTING REALISTIC GOALS

There is no shame in adjusting your goals so you can reach them.

I’m going to say that one more time.

There is no shame in adjusting your goals so you can reach them!

Now, I’m not saying sterilize your goals so they are too easy to reach. I’m saying lower the bar just enough that you can reach it, but you still have to stretch to get it.

I’ll give you an example.

After I finished my first manuscript, I was chomping at the bit to get it to beta readers. I had vague ideas of things that needed changing, but I was clueless where to start my big-picture edits. Rather than giving myself ample time to do a thorough self-edit (as I should have), I set the goal to do a month-long editing blitz, then blast out the manuscript to betas for feedback.

Spoiler: this was not a realistic goal.

What I thought would be a quick copyediting pass turned into the aforementioned thorough self-edit. My beta reader deadline crept closer and closer, and I was nowhere near finishing. For me, this deadline was non-negotiable because it involved keeping promises to others, so instead of quitting or being late, I stepped back and evaluated what I could do.

What I could do was drop what chapters I had to betas a chunk at a time and continue my self-edits. I changed my goal to sending my betas three chapters per week, starting on the promised deadline, and self-editing another three chapters per week to match the release schedule. This new goal was still challenging and fulfilled my commitments, but broke the work down into a more manageable timeline.

You also can do something similar while participating in National Novel Writing Month. Yes, the general goal and point of National Novel Writing Month is to write 50,000 words; however, it isn’t illegal to adapt the word count to what you can do. There is even a place on the official NaNoWriMo website where you can adjust the word count goal you are shooting for and calculate the milestones for you!

Here are three steps you can take to determine what might be a more realistic goal for you to reach if 50,000 words isn't plausible at the moment.

STEP 1: TAKE STOCK OF WHAT YOU CAN DO

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