New Year's Goals by Bonnie Le Hamilton

It’s that time of year again when everyone’s setting goals and all around the world gyms are overflowing with people who say they want to lose weight. Which is the most common goal people set, but how many achieve it?

The answer is not many, and its mostly because they set goals, but they don’t build a road map toward achieving it. Reaching a goal isn’t done in one step, it takes many steps, and you have to figure out what the first step is before you can take it. However, you also have to set out mini goals along the way.

For you men, think of it in terms of playing football, you reach the goal in ten-yard increments. Aim for the first ten yards, rejoice when you reach it (or surpass it), then move to the next ten yards. 

Or think of it as climbing several flights of stairs. It starts with taking the first step. But if you keep your eyes solely on the top, you miss how far you’ve come from the bottom. You need to celebrate each “landing.” You also need to aim for them, and set a deadline to reach each of them.

This goes for any goals you are setting whether it be about your writing, your health, your education, your job, your finances. No matter what category your goal falls in, in each case you have to map out a plan to reach the top. If not – well, I don’t know who said it first, but I’ve heard it several times, “A goal without a plan, is just a wish.”

So, stop wishing and make a plan!

My goals start with finishing the edits on my manuscript Forbidden Connection. After that I’m thinking I should finish my sci-fi, then I’ll think about all my other started but not finished stories.

And its not like I have a lot of time because I have goals in other aspects of my life as well, and I’m trying really hard to map plans for all them. Which is pretty hard for me, because let’s face it, I’m a pantser when it comes to writing and why should I be any different when it comes to life?

The fact is, I do write with a plan, sort of, its all in my head, not written down. You can ask Konnie, she knows. I’ll ask her to help me brainstorm. She’ll give suggestions which I’ll then shoot down because it won’t fit with what I already have planned, and we’re talking planned, not written yet. I do that a lot.

Of course, I’ve also had to change those plans because they just don’t work. And actually, that is something needed in goal setting. Like last year my goal was to finish editing Forbidden Connection and shop it out. Well, I did submit it, once. Got rejected. It wasn’t really ready yet. It was too soon. And I honestly felt I made a mistake in submitting it when I did, now I’m editing again, this time with the help of an editor. So, I’m back to the same goal I had this time last year, but that isn’t to say I didn’t make progress this last year. I did get one rejection, and my story is a lot further along than it was before!

And I’ve got to remember where I started, which was with a 130 + k word manuscript which I wrote in just 8 weeks. And talk about rough! It didn’t just need cut down, it needed a whole lot of help, in a lot of different ways.

I spent several years editing and revising it, then an editor friend of mine offered to look at it for me before I submitted anywhere. She sent it back to me, informing me it was mostly telling. Back to the drawing board!

And I revised and edited it at least a dozen times between then and the current edits, so you can imagine what a mess the first draft was!

If you want a timeline for how long this had taken, I’ll point out that Konnie’s oldest daughter was a preteen when I wrote the rough draft – she’s now married and expecting. And considering where I lived at the time, it had to be the summer of 2001. Yes, that’s right, almost eighteen years ago. I’ve moved three times since then, and I’ve lost count of how many computers I’ve gone through. Back then it was a desktop which only used floppy disks.

My how times have changed.

Anyway, what are you’re goals for the new year? And do you have a road map to achieve it?

Happy writing everyone! And have a happy and successful New Year!

The New Year And Goals by Bonnie Le Hamilton

As 2017 came to a close, I wrote down several goals for the new year, and I went so far as to write in my calendar the things I was going accomplish each of the first seven days of 2018, so I could start the new year with a bang, and dive right into achieving all my various goals.

Now, before I continue, I must point out that as I wrote those goals, my left knee was bothering me a little bit. I didn’t think much of it, because I have arthritis in that knee, and it is cold out, it is winter after all. So, the minor pain was no big deal, and I could live with it.

I even mentioned that little twinge to my doctor when I had my regular checkup at the end of December, but by the first day of 2018 it was way more than a twinge and my knee was the size of small melon. I’d also spiked a fever on the 31^st. Okay I wasn’t feeling well, and by the 3^rd I went back to my doctor’s office.

That was not a fun day since my doctor wanted to “rule out” a blood clot, he sent me to the hospital to get an ultrasound on my knee, while at the same time he ordered antibiotics for me.

Thankfully, the ultrasound came back that there were no blood clots, and the antibiotics have done their job. But in the meantime, I had to stay off my knee as much possible.

It should have been prime writing, or editing time, except, I didn’t want to think. I didn’t want to work. I didn’t feel well. So, while nothing got done around here, not one item on my extensive to do list, I sat around and read. Some of it books (I did read HP 1 – 5, and even started 6), but most of what I did was read a great many of my unfinished manuscripts. And I mean read, as in no editing and no adding to, just reading.

Not the auspicious start I had hoped for, and now I’m behind, but I have the rest of the year to work on my goals. 

Happy writing everyone.

Writing goals by Bonnie Le Hamilton

Here it is day three of the new year and I haven’t done anything toward any of my goals for this year.

It’s not like I don’t want to, or I just haven’t put the effort forth (okay maybe I haven’t put effort forth) its just that I haven’t been feeling well. I’m still not feeling well, been spiking a fever and everything.

Can you think straight when your temperature is up? I can’t. I’m lucky if I can think at all.

Anyway, I do have some writing goals for this year. And I need to try to get on them, whether I’m feeling well or not. The problem with writing making goals when you’re feeling well is that you forget how illness can put a wrench in the works. 

Anyway, so far I'm not doing so well on my goals. How about you?

Happy writing everyone.

Goals by Bonnie Le Hamilton

Okay, National Novel Writer’s month is now over. Time to get on with life, and catch up on the things that went by the wayside while I was frantically writing all those words, and I did a lot better than I thought I could!

I’m proud of myself for that but now is the time to think up some goals for the coming year, and maybe even set some deadlines to get them done. And it wouldn’t hurt if I could figure out how to do them without letting the chores go for a month. 😊

I have a niece, who is also a writer and she’s set the goal to publish six of her books this coming year. A goal I find rather ambitious even though most of those are already written and it isn’t like she has to find a publisher willing to take a risk on her, she self-publishes, but I doubt I could manage that kind of output in a year and unlike her, I don’t work!

Then again, I’m a slow typist. I’ve mentioned this before. I can’t win a word war – wait, I actually won one this year. Shocked me – shocked everyone. I usually don’t unless it’s against Konnie, and I suspect she had a lot of interruptions on her end while we were writing. She usually does.

Anyway, setting writing goals is a good idea and I’ve been thinking about some goals I could set, not just in writing but in life in general. Now I just have to set what the goal will be and how I would achieve it. Though I already know my writing goal is to get my manuscript Forbidden Connection ready to shop out to publishers and I’ve already started on that one, its with the editor right now.

Next, I have to work on the synopsis and the query and research the best agents and publishers for it.

Okay, I have a lot to do this coming year.

How about you? What kind of goals are you planning for this coming year?

Happy writing everyone! 😊