Skip to main content

Writing Goals with World of Ink guest author Sherry Ellis



     As writers, we are responsible for creating our own work structure.  No one makes us write.  No one tells us how much to write or when to do it.  If we are to be productive writers, we have to monitor ourselves.  Goals are one way to do that.

     The goals we set should be measurable and attainable.  Measurable goals are goals that require some kind of output.  It might be to write a certain number of pages per day.  Or it might be to send out a certain number of query letters per month.  Whatever the goal is, it should be quantifiable.

     Goals should also be attainable.  For a goal to be attainable, we have to be honest with ourselves.  So ask yourself, do you really have the time to crank out a five-hundred-page novel in six months?  Are you really going to earn $40,000 a year as a writer?  Our goals should be realistic, recognizing what is possible in our own lives and what is possible in the world of writing.

     It is a good idea, when setting goals, to include a mix of long-term and short-term goals.  When setting long-term goals, ask yourself where you want to be a year from now.  Where do you want to be five years from now?   These questions help you chart your course.  They serve as a guide when you start making short-term goals.  Short- term goals are usually ones that require output.  Examples of short-term goals would be writing a certain number of hours per week, or producing a certain number of articles per month.  These are the “baby steps’ in helping us achieve our long-term goals and dreams.

     The important thing about goals is that we have to check our progress regularly.  Are we meeting our goals?  Are we exceeding them?  Do we need to make adjustments?  If something doesn’t seem to be working, what can we do differently?

     The beauty of goals is that they can be changed.  It’s our job to make sure our goals are working for us.  If we are diligent about making, following, and checking our goals, then we have a greater chance of being productive and successful writers.  



About Sherry Ellis:
Sherry Ellis is a freelance writer who writes articles for parenting magazines and children’s publications.  Her first book, That Baby Woke Me Up, AGAIN, was published in 2005.  Her second, That Mama is a Grouch, was published in May of 2010.  It was honored as a finalist in the Parenting/Family category of the 2010 USA Book News Awards. 

Sherry is also a professional musician who plays and teaches violin, viola, and piano.  Ms. Ellis lives in Loveland, Ohio with her husband and two children.

You can learn more about Sherry Ellis and her books at http://storiesforchildrenpublishing.com/SherryEllis.aspx

Comments

  1. Thanks for featuring me here on your blog. I hope this article helps a lot of aspiring authors set goals so that their dream of being published can become a reality.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thank you for visiting my blog and for leaving a comment.

Popular posts from this blog

Interview Friday with Author Maggie Lyons

Maggie Lyons was born in Wales and brought up in England before gravitating west to Virginia’s coast. She zigzagged her way through a motley variety of careers from orchestral management to law-firm media relations to academic editing. Writing and editing nonfiction for adults brought plenty of satisfaction but nothing like the magic she discovered in writing fiction and nonfiction for children. Several of her articles, poetry, and a chapter book have been published in the children’s magazines Stories for Children Magazine and knowonder! VS: I want to thank you for being my guest here on The Writing Mama today, Maggie. To get things started can you share what you do to help balance your writing life with your family life? Maggie: Very fortunately for me, I’m retired and my son left the nest some time ago. That doesn’t mean I have no other commitments, of course. In fact, I’m very busy as a freelance editor, but I do have the privilege of being able to control m...

American Chronicle | Get to know Rodger Dodger Dog and His Author, Jan Britland

In 1986, Jan was driving her children in a new town to start school. On their way, they would pass a beagle type dog chained to a huge Magnolia tree. Some days they would see the chain hanging down from the tree. "I think we just assumed the dog was in the house until one day we realized he was up in the tree. From that day on, Rodger Dodger Dog as we called him became a favorite. It was a 45-minute drive, which can become boring so as we passed him, I would start telling a story about Rodger Dodger's adventures up the tree and beyond. Because I am so dyslexic, the stories had to rhyme so I could remember them from day to day. They also started the same to get me going," shared Britland. However, it wasn´t until 2008 when Britland received a phone call from her daughter Kelly, who had young children of her own that the Rodger Dodger Dog started to even think about becoming a children´s book or series for that matter. "My daughter was complaining her son ...

Interview Friday: Author Sands Hetherington

Sands Hetherington credits his son John for being his principal motivator. Sands raised his son as a single parent from the time John was six. He read to him every night during those formative years. He and young John developed the Crosley crocodile character in the series during months of bedtime story give-and-take. Sands majored in history at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) and has an M.F.A. in creative writing and an M.A. in English from UNC-Greensboro. He lives in Greensboro. VS: I want to thank you for being my guest here on The Writing Mama today. To get things started, Sands, what do you do to help balance your writing life with your family life? Sands: Hi Mama and thanks for having me over. Actually, my family life was part of my writing life. I was a single (male) parent of a six-year-old son. We always did bedtime stories. One night John invented a red crocodile named Crosley for an after-lights-out companion. This evolved directly into...