Writing goals as an author

As a fantasy author, I will be using the fantasy genre as my pillar for this article. Doesn’t make much sense for me to give advice on setting goals for a romance novel.

Context for my counsel

Like many of you aspiring authors, I’ve always wanted to write a book of my own. Ever since I picked up Eragon and got inspired by Christopher Paolini’s rise to fame as a mere teenager. Incredible.

Unfortunately, I’ve never been great at sticking to my goals. I probably started ten different books over my lifetime, but never finished any of them. Partly because I didn’t know how to properly plan my story. And partly because I think the ideas just sucked ass.

But when Covid hit, I was trapped inside with nothing to do. So did I finally start writing?? No. I watched a lot of Netlix and HBOMax. Pretty much cleaned out their libraries of any fantasy or action movies (Which were terribly few, by the way. Get it together!). But as I watched these shows, I just kept getting frustrated by the same plots or characters or tropes I’d seen a million times before. I just felt like there was a complete lack of creativity in the media world. Everything was too formulaic and predictable.

So did I finally start righting now?? No. I turned to books for my entertainment. What movies lacked, books dramatically fulfilled. Entire worlds and universes of incredible ideas, magic, economies, characters, villains. My love for reading was reborn! I read everything I could get my hands on in the fantasy realm. Luckily Brandon kept most of my time heavily occupied.

Only after I’d read countless books did I decide I wanted to write a story of my own. A unique concept I hadn’t really seen from any of the series I read. It took me three years to finish my first book (to be fair, it was 208,000 words long). But I think much of the reason for my extended journey was caused by a lack of setting goals for myself.

For context, when I started writing the next book in the series, I wrote 40,000 words in about a month. Not because I had a better idea of what needed to happen, but because I told myself I had to write at least 1,000 words a day. So with that in mind, let’s jump right in goal setting.

Word count > Time/chapters

I’m telling you what worked for me. You are not me. So calm down. Take it or leave it. But in my experience, having word count goals always helped me perform better than anything else. Here’s some quick examples:

Goal: Write for 3 hours a day

Okay. Cool. For me, this just means I could sit in front of my computer for three hours and maybe string together a couple of beautiful sentences. There was no real depth behind the goal. No stakes. No consequences. Just… unproductive time.

Now this is probably because I have ADHD and kept getting distracted with games or text messages. Maybe if I locked myself into a dark closet with no internet I might’ve stayed focused. Sounds unpleasant. No thanks.

Goal: Write a chapter a week

How long are your chapters? Are you pinching off the story just so you could say you finished the chapter on time? For me, my chapters have ranged from 500 words to 5,000 words. That’s a big swing in workload for those two weeks. One might only take me a day, where the other could take me long hours after work to get it done on time.

For me, I just don’t like the lack of consistency. It’s hard for me to get into a good rhythm when I measure things by chapter, and limits me if I finish early. It just wasn’t my style. If it works for you, cool.

Goal: Write 500 words per day

Doesn’t matter how long it takes, you need to get at least 500 words every day. Do you know why? Because if you stick to that schedule, you’ll write a 100,000-word book in 200 days. That’s less than seven months. Quantifiable. Achievable.

Basically, I like starting at the end and working backwards from there. For instance, I wanted to write a 200,000-word book in nine months so I would have three months for editing. That’s about 750 words per day. Minimum. Then if I wanted to get ahead, I could always write an extra hundred or so words each day. It really starts to add up. Sometimes those 500 words took me an hour, other times it took me all night. But before you know it, the book is done!

Realistic = Motivation

The more realistic you are with your goals, the more motivated you’ll be to actually hit them. In fact, sometimes I set lower goals for myself, just because I like the feeling of surpassing them. I compete with myself. Strange, but true.

Before you set your goals, sit down and write. Do it for a month. Figure out how long it takes you to write your story. This will give you a good idea of how it will be to write with distractions like screaming children or late day-job hours. Keep track of that data using a tool like Strides on your phone, or even a Google Spreadsheet.

What’s your average daily word count? Maybe you could only get 300 words per day with all the chaos around you. Maybe you easily knocked out 1,000 words a day. Doesn’t matter. Both instances provide realistic data of your performance. If you’re writing 300 words, don’t set a goal for 1,000. If you’re writing 1,000, it doesn’t make sense to limit you to 500. Whatever your average is, add 100 words and make that your daily goal. It’s still achievable, but it will help you stretch yourself and give you that sense of accomplishment.

Don’t miss days

Harsh but true. Nothing killed my motivation to write faster than missed days. I just felt like I was falling behind and wouldn’t be able to catch up. Even though this was all just in my head. It’s not like I was accountable to publisher’s contracts or anything like that.

If you know you have a vacation planned, you better plan to put some extra words in before you leave. I always say it’s easier to be 100% than it is to be 99%. When you give something 100%, you can’t make excuses and there’s no wiggle room for mistakes. But with 99%…. It’s incredible how easy it can be to justify a day off here or there. Before you know it, that 99% turns into 70%, then 50%, then you give up entirely.

Be prepared to give it your all before you start. There are too many reasons to quit for you to start with a half-ass attitude.