With only a month before the new year, writing goals are on my mind. Yesterday I reviewed my 2012 list of goals to see if I’d accomplished what I set out to do last year.

 

I’d finished a few projects on my list–like revisions of books sold the year before and some marketing things.

 

Still…my “first loves”–the three unfinished novels–hadn’t progressed much at all.

 

Why Not?

What were my downfalls? I could identify two big ones that plagued me probably four days out of five: (1) most days I didn’t do my novel writing first, and (2) I spent way too much time on the Internet.

 

First, what pre-empted my novel writing? A variety of things: email, blogging, paid critiques, dishes, studying, babysitting sweet grandkids, work-for-hire writing, and exercising.

 

Second, how did I use up my precious writing time on the Internet? In a variety of ways: junk email, reading newsletters and blogs, checking weather, studying vacation sites in England, reading Facebook posts, checking my bank balances, paying bills, reading too many horror stories on CNN, and tweaking my website.

 

Every one of those things was a not-very-cleverly-disguised way of not working on my novels.

 

Different Writing Goals in 2013

So…I’m thinking seriously of trying something new for my 2013 goal setting. I will make a short list of fiction book projects I want to finish. And then I will give myself only two “must do” things for each day in 2013: (1) work on my current novel first, and (2) stay off the Internet till noon.

 

If I can do these two things consistently, I suspect it will make a huge impact on accomplishing next year’s writing goals.

 

I think I will start NOW and do it for the remainder of 2012 and see how it impacts

• my writing output
• my enjoyment of writing
• and my overall emotional satisfaction with life.

I’m guessing that the impact will be huge.

 

How about you? What do you see as your biggest stumbling blocks to actually getting the writing done?