How to Set Writing Goals

And what to do when you miss your (completely arbitrary) deadlines.

Hey, would you look at that, it’s 2024. If you’re anything like me and the other bazillion people on the planet, your brain is probably still stuck somewhere circa 2020. Don’t panic: we’re going to be okay, even if there may be another gray hair (or six) when we look in the mirror.

As I set my writing goals for 2024, I’m looking back on what I accomplished in 2023 – and how I’m moving on from the finish lines I didn’t cross.

Step 1: Appreciate the Journey (and the Detours)

The end of this past year snuck up on me in a way that made me feel nostalgic for the end of era I didn’t think I’d miss. I quit my day job back in June and this was the first holiday season since 2009 that I wasn’t sitting at a desk, counting down the days until Christmas vacation started. I mourned for it and my end of year traditions! (aka, the Mariah Carey Holiday Radio Pandora Station on repeat). But then I also never experienced the dread of the holiday coming to a close and the inevitable return to work. I didn’t stress out about my inbox and setting my alarm. It was delightful, sure, but also really…weird.

No, my return to work plan looked a little different this year.

First of all, it took 2.5 days to recover from my lack-of-sleep hangover from New Years Eve. I didn’t stay up all night on purpose; I just couldn’t sleep because we stayed at a friend’s house and I didn’t have the right pillow, mattress, temperature, or Feng Shui, and that happens in your mid-30s.

I had intended to start January 2 as the first official writing day of the year. I wrote it in my planner, marked it off in my social media content calendar, was excited for all of “break”, and thought about how I was going to position the cute new mug my grandma got me for Christmas into the photo.

But when I got out of bed that day, lack of sleep aside, I wasn’t inspired to write. And the reason was because I didn’t finish my manuscript by the end of the year like I said I would. I felt defeated.

You see, the months after quitting my job didn’t quite go as planned. I was way more burned out than I realized, and so even though I joked about “lounging about by the pool with a cocktail in my hand, tiny umbrella included, without a care in the world” I did actually need to decompress. Then my husband had an unexpected, huge career change one month after I did, which uprooted our lives for the rest of the summer. We thought we were moving, so I transitioned immediately into house hunting mode, which is a new special kind of hell in this decade. Thankfully, we did not move and still get to call Pittsburgh home. Instead, he was offered the role as a WFH gig, and for the first time, ever, I had to share “my” space with someone who has a completely different working style than me. I’m talking about the kind that ends marriages. You know, like one person needs it dark and quiet in the mornings (me) and the other has every light in the house on and the radio playing before 8 a.m. (him).

We solved it with two separate offices, a lot of communication, and noise cancelling headphones.

It was the summer of adjustment in many, many ways.

Long story short, I quit my job in June with the full intention of finishing my manuscript by the end of summer and also job searching again in the fall, but by the time fall arrived, I hadn’t made progress on either front.

I quit my job in June with the goal of having my manuscript finished and ready to query by September.

I didn’t touch my manuscript again until September.

The completely arbitrary but still important (to me) deadline of finishing my manuscript came and went. So I immediately made a new deadline – for the end of the year.

Guess what.

Yep, still not done.

Step 2: Be Realistic. Be Honest. No, Really.

I journal my way through my writing process, tracking what days I write, what days I edit, what days I scroll TikTok for hours watching advice from literary agents and calling it research. I can look back and see that throughout the fall, I barely touched my manuscript.

To be fair, I was working on it. About one day a week, on average. And I focused really heavily on Act I of the book, wanting those first few chapters to be as good as they could be. I shared the manuscript in sections, chapter by chapter, first with my alpha reader, then with a few betas. I needed the feedback at that point, had to make sure that this was something still worth doing when I had been looking at it way too closely for long.

As the months came and went, that deadline haunted me, dangling over my head like Jacob Marley. And I’ve always been a bit of a procrastinator deadline-driven writer. It’s why I excelled in J-School and the corporate world of PR.

I wasn’t ready by the fall. I ended up going backwards in my journey to recover from burnout and chase this dream. I was ready in June. I had spent years saving and planning. But life got in the way, ate up my pool time. I had to restart relaxing.

After a few weeks of meeting myself where I was at, with zero guilt, I was ready to begin again.

In December, I worked on my manuscript almost every single day.

I still didn’t meet the end of year deadline. My husband had to pull me away from my desk and convince me to take a holiday break. But then I lost that momentum and am still fighting to get it back, so TBD if that was the right choice or not.

Step 3: Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough

If you are in the writing zone, don’t stop. I don’t care if it’s midnight. Until your eyes get blurry and you have to pause every other sentence to yawn, don’t stop.

Let the writing madness win.

There is a fine line here, though. Sometimes, the next morning, you’ll read your writing and be like wow, this is total crap. And it will be. But you wrote it. And after you edit for a few hours, you’ll realize it’s not actually that bad.

Let yourself work the way you have to, no matter what it looks like to the outside world. Take breaks. Eat snacks. Drink water. But let yourself fall into the madness of the worlds you create as if you were a child who doesn’t know any better. Drown out the noise and create.

And if you are finding roadblocks along the way, then create a solution for how to avoid them. It might be hard – not everyone has the same type of flexibility. My husband and I really struggled with this while he was learning to WFH and I was trying (and failing) to write.

Find what works for you. Ask for the time you need. Stand up for yourself.

Step 4: Treat It Like You’re Getting Paid (Now)

I’ve personally found it slightly harder to be my own boss than I thought I would. I’m the only person who is counting on me, right? As I’m unemployed, I currently don’t have anyone holding my paycheck, a deadline, or anything else over my head. I get to come and go as I please, do whatever I want, when I want, like a teenager. And us humans, we like to meander around, to wander. We like to eat cheese and sit by a warm fire.

The day I realized that I needed to treat writing like it was any other career choice and not just a daydream was the day things clicked for me.

I’m a scheduler, I’m a planner. I have to do lists and enjoy scratching items off of those lists by the end of the week. I hate setting goals because I get intimidated easily by them and have a tendency to over-produce as it is, so baby steps are usually better for me. But a project plan?! Oh la la. I like writing on deadline more than I like open-ended scenarios, and having a calendar or planner helps things become more real to me.

I did all of this kind of organizational stuff when I was working for someone else. I stopped doing it when I started writing full-time.

I also say that now: I’m a full-time writer. No, I don’t get paid. But I work 6-8 hour days, 3-4 days a week, and spend the rest of my time researching my craft or reading my competition. I had the philosophical epiphany that I didn’t just choose to leave behind a job, I career switched. I want novel writing to be my full-time career and now I treat it as such. Changing my outlook set my mind free. Unless it really works for you (and sometimes it can be healthy), don’t let fear be a motivator. I’m not writing because I don’t want to go back to work; I’m writing because writing is my job.

Step 5: Work Backwards to Set Your Goals

Traditional publishing takes 1-3 years from the time you acquire representation to the day your book hits the shelves. It’s 2024, babes. If you’re a debut author, you’re looking at 2027, if everything goes your way.

There are querying cycles for agents and publishing houses. The holidays are out, from Thanksgiving to New Years. March and April kick off conference season. Summer is vacation time and no one in the northern hemisphere wants to be working in August. September is the prime time to query, so I’ve been told. January, February, and early March are safe bets.

This was the realization that lit my ass on fire to set the goal of finishing my manuscript in the next month or two. I don’t have it in me to wait until next September. If I miss this window, I’m adding another year onto the schedule. (Of course, making a lot of egotistical assumptions that I can actually be successful at this).

I sat down in late December to reflect on the year behind me and make a five year plan for the first time in my life. Up until now, I’ve basically got by on survival mode. The privilege of having a choice is new to me. But this was the greatest thing I could have done while on this journey.

I let myself dream. Of the stages I want to stand on, of doing an author Q&A, or a book tour. Of the writer friends I’d make along the way. The countless hours of editing and writing until my eyes crossed and my carpel tunnel flared. I practiced my John Hancock. I dreamt of my sophomore novel (that draft has been started, too) and how I wanted my writing career to look.

I know this isn’t realistic in any way but that’s ok. I’m dreaming big because that is what fuels me.

And then I asked myself what it took to get there. (I ignored the part where luck is 99% of it). The first step I could manage and control: finish the damn manuscript.

I’ve noticed that there’s something that happens when you start taking your dream of being an author serious; without your consent, you succumb to the noise around you about marketing, sell-ability, niching down into a genre, etc. Email newsletters and blog posts and TikToks become where you think you should be spending your time instead of writing, and comparison is the thief of all joy. It was a hard lesson to learn, but it helped me in the long run because I saw where I was wasting time and remembered what I really wanted to be doing.

That’s why I’m blocking out the next month. No social media doom scrolling. I’m only allowed to post if it takes less than 10 minutes. What I’m going to do instead is take pictures to share later – documenting the process, but not sharing until I have the time. This will be my only blog post (for a little while). I hope I revisit this in 3 months with a glorious update.

My 2024 Writing Goals:

1. I’m going to finish my manuscript in the next 1-2 months.
2. I am going to start querying this winter.
3. I am going to remind myself, daily, of the reasons why I want this.
4. I will remember to wear my blue light glasses every day.
5. And to drink water.
6. When I fail, I will do it with grace and dignity.
7. I will not be afraid to keep trying.
8. I will be gentle with myself if I don’t meet these goals, and be respectful of the journey along the way.

Wish me luck. I wish you luck in your writing journey, and hope our names might be next to each other on a shelf or panel someday.

Happy 2024, y’all. May all your wishes come true. See you in a few!