This week I decided to clean out my Google Drive folders, and the amount of random crap saved there has been illuminating. I have a recipe – in French – for Vinegrette Ardechoise and absolutely no memory of putting it there. I’ve been infiltrated by a French hacker with a penchant for garlic-heavy cooking.
Another rediscovered gem is titled 2018 Writing Goal Kickoff:
I’ve set myself the goal of 2,000 words a day, five days a week, which equates to 480,000 words this year. A typical mystery novel, according to a quick Google search, is 60,000-80,000 words on average. So I should produce enough word vomit to fit into between six and eight average length mysteries. Not that this helps me any – I’m not even really sure what I want to write! It will, I’m hoping, give me some idea of what I’m working towards. Plus, I’m not even sure what 2,000 words a day will really be like (I’m already at over 100 with this parentheses) and I think that’s probably way too easy for a 2018 resolution.
– 2018 Emmett, full of grandiose ambition and delirium
Well gee-whiz, 2018 Emmett! That sure does sound easy as pie! See how quickly you wrote out your first 100 words? That’s obviously a sign that writing another 1,900, every day for a year will be a piece of cake, right? WRONG!
A quick word of caution to anyone getting started with goal-setting: If you don’t currently do the activity in question, whatever goal you are setting is most likely not easy enough. Set your sights low. Develop the habit. Then anything else becomes gravy, extra motivation to amp things up the following year.
In case my tone wasn’t clear, 2018 was a year in which I wrote maybe – maybe! – 5,000 words in total. If you throw in some personal emails and lengthy Christmas cards, maybe 7,500 words. But that’s it. That’s enough to fill the Forward to a novel, in which my agent bemoans having signed with a moronic, overly-confident optimist like myself.
BUT IT GETS WORSE! Because not only did I want to start writing, I wanted to set a physical goal as well, something “simple” like:
1,000 sits-ups and 100 pushups in one sitting with no breaks?
Maybe this one is more reasonable, but I had never done more than 100 sit-ups and 25 pushups in one sitting. And guess what? 2018 did not change that.
But often reality prevails, as it did with me, a few paragraphs later, in 2018:
Since beginning this brief little exercise, I have changed my overall writing goal (2,000 words five times a week) to 1,000 per day. All based on how long it has taken me in this entry to write 100 words and 1,000 words (are you f***ing kidding me? Feels like I’ve been writing for hours and this is only half of what I’m telling myself I’ll write each day?!).
– 2018 Emmett, minus a little grandiosity
I may have lacked self-awareness (and still might – how would I know?), but the year-end reflection is a constant work-in-progress, and I had to start at some point. Plus, I had accomplished some things to be proud of the year before, like finally moving to the same city as Anne and completing my first 52-book challenge. So my 2018 goals were a bit unrealistic? Baby steps…
In full-disclosure, I cannot end this post without sharing how I wrapped up that exercise three years ago:
I just need to tackle, and improve at, all the parts of writing I have thus far overlooked, passed over, ignored etc… First of which is dialogue. I cannot be bad at writing dialogue. “Which means that,” he said, clearing his throat with gusto, “I need to actually begin writing it.” Second is narrative, learning how to catch the reader up on backstory without droning on for pages.
But what excitement! Two parts of writing I have so far avoided but which I have so many examples of waiting in the rafters. Harry Potter will be my guide. Leviathan Wakes will be my guide. Any and everything that Stephen King has ever written will be my guide! I will write my own novel! I WILL!
– 2018 Emmett… holy sh*t dude