It’s that time of the year. Goal Setting Time!
Anyone who knows me knows I *love* goals. Send me on a road trip without a map, but never take my goals from me.
The most interesting thing about this year’s planning is the big changes. On April 19th, 2007 I started writing. I gave myself 3 years to make some type of forward movement career-wise or it was going to be time to reevaluate the writing plan. The plan for those three years was to get as much written as possible, learn as much as possible, improve as much as possible — take it all and go back and polish. All time/money (ha, welcome to unemployment soon after that) was to go directly to writing. Vacations = workshops. Free time = writing. Extra cash = classes. Focus it all until I got an agent.
I did that. It took 2.5 years of my 3. So, now it’s time to call the last couple months gravy and hit the reset button. So, 5 year plan:
In Five Years I Will:
- 15 – # of Completed manuscripts total
- 6 – # of Published Novels
- Set up a speaking speciality based on my RL work and applying it to the writing world
- Be able to move to working PT and Writing as my sources of income
- Will have finished those darn Edit Cards (I figure, 5 years…)
- I’ll be saving for retirement and a house at this point
- By year five I’ll have budgeted for one major trip every year
- Every year I must find one big thing about writing I need to improve on and focus on it till I’m golden, baby, golden
Yeah, a lot of that may be out of my hands, but if *I* don’t do #1, there’s no way #2 can happen. If I don’t do #1 so #2 & #3 can happen, then there’s no way #4 can happen.
So, I’m taking as much as I can into my own hands and aiming for the stars.
I would absolutely love to hear other people’s 5 year plan. Tell me everything. Tell me the why and how. Tell me what makes you passionate about it!
Luv YA 