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Why we need to match our writing goals and plans to our definition of writing success
This is an edited excerpt from my January 2023 newsletter, The Writing Life.
You can also listen to it on my Living the Writing Life podcast.
If you’re like me, you spent the last days of 2022 developing your writing goals for the new year along with a list of tasks related to meeting those goals before 2023 winds to a close.
Before you get too deep into the “what to do” portion, I have a suggestion: ask yourself why that goal is there.
Sometimes we set a new goal because all the experts say it’s the one that we should be going after in the current year.
Sometimes we keep a goal (along with all the steps we were supposed to follow to achieve it) because it seems wasteful to discard it.
And sometimes we choose a goal almost at random because we haven’t defined what success as a writer is for us.
In any case, we spend hours, days, weeks, or even years ticking off task after task that is tied to a goal that isn’t right for us. And then, if we do reach it, we wonder why we feel unsatisfied, disappointed, and unfulfilled.
How can you avoid this scenario? Look at each writing goal and ask yourself three questions:
- Is it worth my time, energy, and creativity?
- Does it fit with my identity of myself as a writer?
- Will achieving that goal bring me the joy and satisfaction I desire?
Let me give you an example. When I first started freelancing decades ago, my idea of writing success was simple and straightforward: to make enough money to keep a roof over my head and pay my bills. With that in mind, I set aside anything writing-related that wouldn’t earn me money (i.e., writing and submitting short stories) because those tasks were a luxury I could ill afford.
My entire identity was as a professional freelance writer-slash-copywriter, churning out as many marketing pieces and magazine articles as I could so the money kept flowing my way.
But over time, things changed, which led me to revise my writing goals. While even now I still need some freelance work to pay the bills, I am in a better place financially. This gives me the time to pursue my first love: fiction writing.
I started by dedicating time to write and submit short fiction, then moved on to publishing short story collections. Now I have two published collections, with two more ready to go: one late this year and a second in 2025.
I also started working on novel writing—another time-consuming project that required turning down some freelance work. Now my first one will come out this June and three more are in various stages of completion.
It’s true that, at first, I wondered if I was being a little fiscally irresponsible. After all, even if my books had decent sales, the royalties I’d earn would most likely be offset by the cost of marketing said books. (And yes, even if you are traditionally published, you still will have to bear the bulk of the marketing and promotion costs, not to mention spending countless hours doing all of it!)
But then I asked myself: how do I define success for me as a writer? I realized that while having an income is important and necessary, I no longer have that six-figure goal (which I never achieved, by the way!) as my primary objective. Freelancing is no longer the end, but a means to the end, as it were.
My identity now is as a fiction writer. My goal is to write and publish fiction: short stories and novels. And my definition of success is to create stories that readers will enjoy, and perhaps, by following my characters as they deal with challenges, learn something they can apply to their own lives.
So, as I worked on my to-do list for 2023, everything I put there had to support that identity, that goal, and my own definition of writing success. Otherwise, I’ll reach December 2023 and have the uncomfortable feeling that where I have ended up—what I have done and how I have spent my time—isn’t where I wanted to be.
What about you? What is your definition of success as a writer, and do the goals you have set for this year support that definition?
The post Thoughts On Writing and Life for January 2023 appeared first on The Writer's Place.