No resolutions this year. Which is good, considering that
although I am writing this in early January (and shivering under SW Florida
freeze warnings), by the time you read this I’d have broken most of the
resolutions. Turns out there is a reason for that, and a solution, and it’s
similar to my writing style.
As 2017 faded into 2018, newspapers and blogs filled with
stories suggesting goal
setting as the avenue to make lasting changes. Resolutions,
they say, are all or nothing and once broken, stay that way. Goals provide a
different avenue. They can be broken down into small, attainable, chunks.
Something that can be measured and achieved. These small successes build on
each other until, voila – on December 31, 2018, the goal is accomplished and
the change made and lasting. Resolution success by a different name.
Building a year by goal setting makes perfect sense to a
writer. It’s the same way we build novels, stories, and blogs. My natural
writing style is pantser. I have an overall storyline (the resolution) but no
detail to get from inciting incident to satisfying conclusion (attainable
goals). In fact, even though I have a general idea of the story, the
perpetrator is often a mystery to me until I complete the first draft, and
sometimes the second or the third!
A few years ago, I discovered a book that helped me go from
pantser to a combination outliner pantser I call a plotster. The book, Rachel
Aaron’s 2,000 to 10,000 talked about planning scenes—not the book—using bullet point
outlines. The process was a revelation. Scenes are the building blocks of a
story like goals are the building blocks of lasting change. Scene by scene the
stories in my books unfolded in an orderly fashion and followed an arc to the
ultimate resolution.
Goal by goal, the changes I want to make in my life can
build on each other to accomplish the changes I want to make in my life. Last
year’s traditional resolutions were failures. Forgotten before the month was
out. The jury is still out on whether the program will be successful—it’s only
January 6 today, but the principles are familiar.
How about you? Did you make resolutions this year? Or like me,
did you decide to set goals?
Welcome to the club, Kait. I moved from resolutions to goals some time ago. Last year I wrote a blog on a particular kind of goal that often works best. Here’s the link should you (or anyone) be interested.
ReplyDelete~ Jim
I set goals: daily (a list of no more than three items), weekly, monthly, and yearly. That seems to induce less guilt.
ReplyDeleteI don't make New Year resolutions. I think they are an inevitable road to failure.
ReplyDeleteAnd I do very much as you do with my writing. No resolutions. What works for me is trickery! I tell myself, I'm going to sit down and write a page. This goal is neither overwhelming nor likely to fail. And what usualy happens is that once I start writing, I end up not stopping after one page, I keep going until I have the best part of a scene. Later I polish the scene, add bits that echo previous themes/emotions/occurrences in the story. Maybe a little internal monologue, a bit of the five senses. Then it is easy to go back later, read over what I've written, finish the scene with a gut punch, and voila, I have written a new chapter!
I find starting a new chapter that is not a direct continuation of the previous chapter almost as hard to staring a new novel. Thus, I lie to myself and say just one page, you can do one page, you know you can!
Thanks so much for the post, I downloaded the book that you suggested and thank you, Jim, for directing us to your blog post which I've bookmarked. I've decided to focus more on things this year that will help me grow into becoming a better writer. The top of my list is to set up my blog and maintaining it, I've bailed on many of them. I've been active on Goodreads since 2008 and yet, I've not posted many reviews as I should have but this year I've got a "Bullet Journal" that will keep me ahead of the game in posting them in a timely order. I love being involved in the Guppy group and learning the mechanics of writing. I'm looking forward to taking classes and hopefully attending a few conferences this year. So that's my goals for this year, it's the year of Sheryl. I hope that doesn't sound selfish but since my retirement, I've been a very active volunteer and it's almost like having a full-time job, I adore helping others but I've lost myself in the process.
ReplyDeleteI'm finding that sustaining my efforts at the goals I have are more than sufficient for me.
ReplyDeleteExcellent post, Kait. Your approach is so sensible. One year, I established the goal of having my first draft completed by the end of May because I was going to be gone for a month and wanted to leave my draft with friends to review while I was gone. I think having that goal helped me complete it. Otherwise, I might still be working on it. But come to think of it, I am still revising and revising. But I'm getting there.
ReplyDeleteKait, I don't make resolutions, at least not for years and years. Instead on my kitchen counter I write things I want to accomplish be it as simple as cleaning the bird cages or writing another chapter in my book, or writing a letter to a friend, or calling to make an appointment for something, or cleaning a room. Each day I add to my list and use a color marker to color what I finished.
ReplyDeleteI find life is too uncertain to make resolutions. Things that seem important at the time may fade into the background entirely, and things that I didn't even know about become all-consuming.
ReplyDeleteMy apologies to all! My computer went on life support yesterday and I ended up spending the day with the repair folks. Turned out to be a problem with my malware program that was resolved by turning it off!
ReplyDelete@Jim, I remember that post and took some lessons from it at the time. Yes, SMART is the wellspring of goal success. It's such a simple concept, but so difficult to learn!
@Margaret - this year I bought the Ink & Volt planner - it's set up to encourage that style of goal setting. I was thrilled to discover this morning when I reviewed the monthly goals that I had succeeded int those, but not the weekly ones, which tells me I need to re-think how I set those.
@Sasccer - YES! That is my process exactly. Amazing what a little trickery can do! I also try to edit as I go in the first draft. I find it makes for a much more enjoyable editing process at the end of the day.
@Sheryl - We'll all be here to help you celebrate. Definitely not selfish. Sounds like you are on the right track completely. Looking forward to hearing more from you. The book has been a tremendous help to me. Hope you find it so as well.
@Warren - Way to go!
@ Grace - You will finish it, and it is an excellent book. I know because I was a lucky beta reader. Can't wait to read the end result.
@Gloria - What a great system, and visual. Do you always accomplish all the goals or do you roll over the ones that remain?
@KM - So true, KM!