Writing goals

I think the ones of us that do quite a bit of writing normally have some goals that they want to meet. It can be the number of words a day or the number of pages, it doesn’t matter but it can also become something that can affect how you write and what you write. Having writing goals can help you stay focused, but it can also impact you emotionally if you aren’t having a good writing day.

Recently I had been having some really good writing days and was seeing an average number of words that was making me extremely happy and then I had a day that just wasn’t quite as good as the previous days, and it started to bother me. Yes, I was still writing, and I should have been happy with the number of words that I achieved but it started to upset me. What I didn’t see was that the number of words that I had been writing was a lot higher than I have written most months since 2018. It did bother me when I looked at just the month of January and saw that the average was going to come down a little bit, but I forgot that just being able to spend the time what I did writing should be what makes me happy.

Setting writing goals sure can help you move things forward but when you have some exceptional writing days you have to remember to think about them as exceptional days and be happy about them. After doing some thinking after getting frustrated with what was still a good writing total, I started to look back at the number of words that I had averaged through all the months I have tracked my writing and how much I had been writing at the beginning of January was extremely high.

What I did end up doing was adjusting my writing goal a little bit and figured that I should be happy with an average that is a little lower because that is making sure that I can get the writing done that I want to do. Also, if I don’t reach this new average, I am also going to be ok with what I am able to accomplish because I am still writing each day and that is part of what is important to me. Sure, I would love to see an average like I was achieving in early 2018 and late 2017, but I also have to accept that times have changed and the how I write has also changed.  

Setting writing goals that are pushing you too hard can impact what you are writing and how you are writing, and you have to remember that. Maybe, seeing a high writing total would be nice but are you just putting word onto paper to see that total or are you writing with a focus and understanding that words are just what is important is how the thoughts and ideas are coming out.