Thursday, June 26, 2008

Goals and Tiredness

So I've been feeling pretty tired and slightly under the weather lately. I think it's my lack of days off. Luckily the 4th is right around the corner and I'll have a day off there. Not to mention the mini-vacation I'll have in mid-July and the full on vacation I'll have in August. But that's all in the future and doesn't help my lack of sleep nor does it help my lack of days of work right now.

In one of Brandon Sanderson's recent blog posts he mentions that he isn't cut out for a "real" job. Some days I'm pretty sure I'm not either even though I (generally) like my job. I certainly like my benefits and paycheck. I also found out recently that my friend Becky is planning on quitting her job in a year and a half after she is vested with her company to focus more on her own writing. This is both an uplifting and depressing thing to hear, uplifting for her and for the aspirations of writers in general and depressing because it's not me doing it.

That being said I think if I ever managed to finish anything I might allow myself the freedom to do that. After all Daren did move out to LA to pursue his dreams so why not give myself that same chance? No reason at all except for the whole bill paying thing. So okay it isn't a viable option right now but it's nice to dream about it.

So in order to get anywhere close to that I need to set some goals. My brain has turned to mush with the lack of sleep and increase of work and just everything. I should set some realistic goals for myself so that I finish my novel and can figure out what I want to do next. But there's no point in thinking about the next step until I have something to show.

So okay...set some goals...right...what exactly IS a realistic goal anyway? I'll come up with one and you guys can all chime in and come up with something as specific or as general as you want. I'll even make a sidebar, that might help me stay motivated!

Goals:
  1. Finish the first draft of Blood of Renatus NO LATER THAN September 1st.
  2. uhmmmmm your turn

4 comments:

ditty said...

That's a good goal, but it might be helpful to break it up into smaller chunks. I usually set myself a weekly writing task, like getting to a certain beat or page number or something along those lines. You could do a word count goal or set it to get a certain chapter/story element finished.

Breaking "finish my novel" into some more concrete goals should make it seem a little less daunting.

Lee Horne said...

That's not a specific goal from you Sarah!!

Although your advice is appreciated :)

ditty said...

Well, I already reached my goal for this week by completing my 40-scene outline for Mute so I can start writing it tomorrow. :-)

I'll probably try to get to the catalyst beat by the end of the weekend (i.e., about 12 pages done). Happy?

Lee Horne said...

No! You're supposed to set a goal for ME! :) See how this works? Gimme a deadline, something to work with here!