Are Daily and Weekly Writing Goals a Necessity?

Photo credit: stargardner on Flickr

I wrote not too long ago about the usefulness of keeping track of your word count progress, so I
thought it appropriate to cover an equally important and related topic—that is, daily writing goals.

I’d read early on about the importance of keeping a daily writing goal, and I have to say it’s probably one of the most useful bits of writing advice that I’ve ever followed.

You see, before I kept daily writing goals, I suffered from pretty frequent writer’s guilt. I would write, but even after a particularly successful writing stint, I would wonder if I’d written enough. Truth be told, no amount ever felt like enough—I always finished thinking, I could write more. 

Needless to say, it made writing needlessly difficult, as I was never sure if I’d made enough progress. It wasn’t until I started to set a daily goal that I was truly able to appreciate my progress and feel accomplished after a successful writing sprint.

In addition to helping to eliminate writer’s guilt, maintaining a daily writing goal accomplished something else as well—it encouraged me to write every day and make consistent progress on my manuscript.

Now that I’ve pretty near perfected a daily writing goal that works for me, I actually keep two goals—daily and weekly writing goals. Allow me to explain.

Using Scrivener (although a calculator would work just as well), I know that in order for me to finish the first draft of my current WIP by the end of the month (or at least reach 70k), I currently need to write 1,723 words every day, or 12,061 words a week. Because I’m an overachiever, I aim for about 2,000 words a day, or 14,000 words per week, which gives me a little extra wiggle room in case the sekrit project turns out to be longer than I anticipated.

The benefit of maintaining a weekly writing goal is again to fight writer’s guilt. If I miss a day, or even two, I know that I have the rest of the week to make up the difference, which usually equates to a couple hundred extra words a day. Nothing to sweat over.

The main idea behind daily and weekly writing goals is to train you to write every day—or at least as consistently as you can realistically manage. In order to use these writing goals most efficiently, there are two rules to follow:

1. Set realistic goals. Look, I’m more than well aware that not everyone can expect to churn out 2,000 words a day, and that’s totally ok. Everyone has different circumstances, and if yours make it difficult to meet more than 1,000 or even 500 words a day, then don’t set your goal for any more than that. There are few things more discouraging than setting a goal impossible to meet, so instead start with a goal you know you can meet. Start small, and if you find you can easily meet the goal, then try bumping it up a little. Everyone has a different golden number—the key is just finding yours.


2. Don’t guilt yourself over not meeting goals. Life happens. Inevitably, you’re going to eventually miss a day, or several days. You may find that you can’t meet your weekly goal one week, or you may discover halfway through the month that you’re behind schedule.
   
   It’s ok. Don’t beat yourself up over what you haven’t accomplished—instead, look at the progress you’ve made. Even small progress is progress—even twenty words added to your WIP are twenty words you didn’t have yesterday.
   
   If you find that you’re consistently missing your goal, then don’t sweat it—it’s probably a sign that you might want to reevaluate your goal. Set the quota a little lower and keep pushing forward. You’ll make it as long as you keep writing.

Do you keep a daily or weekly writing goal? Why or why not? 

Twitter-sized bites: 

Why one writer lives by daily and weekly writing goals while first drafting. (Click to tweet) 

Do you keep a daily or weekly writing goal? Here's why you may want to consider it. (Click to tweet) 

The Gift Writing Gives Us

Photo credit: a.drian on Flickr

“I think that is the gift that both reading and writing can give us; the gift of escaping the prison of ourselves.” –John Green

Although I couldn’t attend BEA (Book Expo America, for those of you wondering what all the talk about BEA is about), I’ve been listening to a lot of the live streamed and recorded events on the Book Expo America website, and I couldn’t be more grateful for the BEA staff that’s made those videos available online because the information they’ve recorded is pure gold (so if you haven’t checked it out, I highly recommend it. With italics).

I especially loved listening to the Author Breakfast that featured a panel of Chris Colfer, John Green, Lois Lowry and Kadir Nelson, because between the laughs and heart-wrenching stories, the authors shared some really powerful advice. An example of this is the quote I started this post off with. You see, after Green joked about the progression from his first novel, Looking for Alaska, in which he shared quite a few traits with the main character to his most recent novel, The Fault in Our Stars, in which he didn’t share any traits with his protagonist, he said the quote that I included above, and I thought that he pointed out something really special about writing.

Because yes, we often hear about writing what we know and while I still think it’s useful to do so at times, what Green emphasizes is the unique ability writing gives us—the ability to escape ourselves and step into someone else’s life.

Writing gives us the chance to be and do whatever we want—and there are no limitations.

This is why we need to take chances as writers to explore new worlds and characters and ideas that are entirely different from our own circumstances. This is why Mary Sueism is more than just the sign of an undeveloped writer—it’s the sign of a writer who hasn’t yet discovered the true gift that writing gives us. This is why, as writers, it is our job to set out on uncharted territory and come out with a story that we might not have thought ourselves capable of writing.

Because, as John Green points out, the gift is for more than just writers—it’s a gift that we can share with our readers. A gift that can really make our work special.

So I encourage you to take a risk and step outside the prison of yourself. You might just return with your best writing experience yet.

Now it’s your turn: What other gifts do writing and reading give us?