Musing on writing goals

[owlmoose]

Another year comes to a close, and as usual my thoughts turn to the question of what writing goals I should set for myself. Of course, this year has a few weeks to go yet, but 2018 signups for getyourwordsout are opening soon, and I've been presented with an interesting new option: Habit Pledges, which measure days written rather than word count. So you set yourself a goal to write on a certain number of days in the year, rather than to hit a particular number of words.

On its face, the idea of this goal is perfect. I've always been skeptical of the idea that word count is the best measure of writing productivity, because it penalizes you for editing, outlining, brainstorming, and anything else that isn't just getting words on the screen. And from the very beginning of my practice of setting writing goals, I've given myself a "writing days" target, every single month. So switching to a Habit Pledge ought to be an obvious choice. But I have two concerns.

1. None of the GYWO options feel like what I need. The three pledge levels are 120 days (about 10 days/month), 240 days (about 20 days/month), and 350 days (almost every day). Although I haven't typically tracked days written per year, most months I set myself a goal of either 5 or 6 writing days per week, and I come close to hitting those numbers more often than not. I did the math for 2017, and I'm already at 254 days written, with over half a month to go and no major writing breaks planned, in what is shaping up to be the year with the lowest word count since I started keeping track. So a pledge of 240 days would not make a particularly interesting challenge. But I can say with absolute certainty that 350 is too much -- I never wrote every day, not even at my most productive, and I already have more than 15 days worth of travel planned in 2018. So if I go with a Habit Pledge, I have to pick something that's either too easy or unattainable, and neither seems like a good choice.

2. I already have the regular writing habit. It may not be as strong a writing habit as I'd like, but even when things aren't going well, I usually manage to sit down and make myself write SOMETHING at a pace close to 20 days per month. One of my main concerns right now is that I'm not giving myself enough sustained writing time to get into a groove and let the words flow. Am I looking at this all wrong? Should I be less concerned with writing something, anything, most days, and more with scheduling myself longer blocks to be productive? A couple of years ago, I tried to schedule writing sprints, but that wasn't particularly successful. That comes back to my other creative issue lately: inspiration. Either I don't have ideas, or I have ideas that never go anywhere, or I get started on an idea and then get lost in the weeds of where to take it next. Prompts can help with the first two issues, but they don't help me much with the third. Anyway, all this is to say that I'm not sure that a Habit Pledge is going to fix the creative woes that are ailing me. Would signing up for 150k words again, and taking it more seriously this time rather than just using the community for structure, make more of a difference? Or would it just depress me to set an ambitious goal and miss it yet again? I honestly do not know the answer to this question.

So, any thoughts? Any other GYWO participants thinking about switching to a Habit Pledge, and if so what are you choosing and why? I'd love to hear what other folks are doing with their 2018 writing plans.

Comments

[mako_lies]

I'm thinking I'm going to do a Habit Pledge this year. But that's mostly because my depression/work&life balance (unbalance) has really crippled my writing the last few years, and while I wrote more this year than last, I'm still looking at less than 50k words for the year.

As someone who had a writing habit that's kind of petered off due to various reasons, the Habit Pledge makes sense for me. But IDK, if you already have the habit.... I can see why it wouldn't look as appealing?

That comes back to my other creative issue lately: inspiration. Either I don't have ideas, or I have ideas that never go anywhere, or I get started on an idea and then get lost in the weeds of where to take it next.

Yes, this. So much this.

Edit to add: I haven't decided what my pledge will be yet. I'd like the 240 one, but I'm not sure if it's realistic, given I sometimes don't write at all in a month.

[umadoshi]

(I was literally writing a post draft about GYWO when I read this. ^_^)

I like the idea of the Habit Pledges, but since I also usually sign up at inkingitout, and they're wordcount-based, I kinda feel like having a "write [x] days" as well doesn't make a ton of sense when I'm also doing a wordcount-based goal elsewhere.

[owlmoose]

I can see that. I will continue to track both regardless of what I decide to pledge, just because I've tracked the data for so long.

[lassarina]

I am definitely going to switch to a day pledge next year, because I want to do a lot of editing. I've spent many years generating words, and now I need to refine them. So for me the new habit goal is perfect.

Could you set yourself a personal goal in betweeen 240 and 350?

[sarasa_cat]

Reading all of the discussion here, especially your comment, now makes me lean toward the habit pledge while personally modifying it such that each month I give myself specific goals that I should strive to meet during my habit days. Goals like (1) edit story x, (2) submit story y, (3) outline story z.

[lassarina]

Yeah, it definitely needs to go hand in hand with more thorough planning each month, which means I'm going to have to like, actually think about my writing goals, what the fuck.