Not everyone is a goal-oriented person, but I am.  I think it’s important to have concrete goals to work towards.  If nothing else, goals give me the opportunity to reach milestones, which, if nothing else, makes me think I’m making progress.  Progress is good, right?

This is the first year I have gotten serious about my writing.  I’ve always dreamed of writing professionally.  I even gave it a try a long time ago—I’d rather not say how long—but gave up.  Back in 2008, I wanted to try again.  To my pleasant surprise, I had some success, but things were moving along slowly.  I decided this year that if I wanted to make a significantly jump in my writing craft and sales, I needed to set firm goals for what I wanted to accomplish.

I kept my goals simple and reasonable—setting unreasonable goals is discouraging—and I review them quarterly to assess my progress.  I’ll probably post about some of my progress in the future, but for now, here’s a summary of my goals:

1. Write and/or edit at least 500 words per day
2. Finish the novel I started last year
3. Finish at least ten short stories
4. Make at least forty story submissions or four sales

I will say that after six months, I’ve exceeded my goal by light-years.  I’m not going to rest on my laurels—gads! a cliche—I have no intentions of slowing down.  I’ve got a positive feedback loop going right now.