How to Set SMART Writing Goals
One of the most important things writers (or anyone) can do is set clear, explicit goals about what they want to accomplish. Most of us have a bunch of vague goals, like the “one day novel” (as in, “one day, I’m going to write a novel). We want to “someday” do x, y, and z – get a big magazine assignment, find an agent, finish our book – but without clear goals, we don’t seem to make any progress. We chug along, picking at our huge projects, rarely coming any closer to finishing, and we feel horrible about ourselves.
If you don’t set goals, you won’t achieve them.
There are a lot of reasons people don’t set clear goals. Most of them boil down to a fear of commitment – and of letting ourselves down when we fail to live up to that commitment. Saying “I’m going to finish my novel” sets us up for failure. What if I don’t have any ideas? What if some life crisis happens and I can’t finish? What if, like the main character in Wonder Boys, I have too many ideas, and it just keeps growing and growing and growing…? What if something better comes along?
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