Your Goal

[Dio]

What is it? Your goal as a writer, that is. When you sit down to write a book, is there something in specific that you want from the completion of said book? Some sign that proves your success, on a personal level if not a financial one.

I think that for me it's fan art. Even just one. One day I hope to finish a novel, and have somebody I don't know make a fan art of it. There is something about someone taking the mental image my words created and turning them into a visual form of art that I think will really make me feel like my efforts paid off.

What about you?

 

[Feo Takahari]

My ultimate goal is to do something I haven't seen before, and do it well. I thought I'd pulled it off with Dulling the Pain and its . . . unique approach to the protagonist/antagonist divide, but I botched it up, and it turned out incomprehensible. Equivalence is another attempt, answering a question I've never heard anyone else ask, but I'm still not sure where I'm going with it, and my hopes are currently tempered.

 

[Androxine Vortex]

My goal is to be able to walk into a bookstore, look at the shelf and see my novel there and be proud enough to say, "Yep. I did that."

 

[Jabrosky]

After mulling over it for some time, I have to conclude that many of my creative productions, both writings and visual artwork, have at their motivational roots a personal dissatisfaction with how certain subjects or people get represented in other people's stories and art, if they are represented at all.

Take for example the ancient Greek myth of Perseus and Andromeda, the one adapted into the Clash of the Titans movies. In those movies Andromeda has blue-eyed porcelain blondes playing her, yet in the original mythology she came from "Aethiopia", which is what the Greeks called ancient Nubia or Kush and what we now call Sudan. Once I learned that Andromeda was supposed to be Nubian, I got upset at the movies' racial misrepresentation of the character and wanted to write my own adaptation of the myth with an emphatically Black African Andromeda. Unfortunately, like all of my novels, it never got far off the ground, though I still wish the next Andromeda I see in a Perseus adaptation is Black (and no, I don't mean Zoe Saldana-like).

 

[CupofJoe]

My goal is to be able to walk into a bookstore, look at the shelf and see my novel there and be proud enough to say, "Yep. I did that."

I'd love that to be my goal...
Right now I settle for getting something finished... before my Bumblebee brain looses interest and finds another flower to sniff.

 

[tlbodine]

Right now, my #1 goal is to get a fan -- just one fan! -- who I don't already know from the outside world

My other goal (the one more firmly in my sphere of control) is to get a copy of a book in every library I have a library card to. See, when I was a kid, my family lived in a motorhome and traveled all over the country because of my dad's work (as a boilermaker). Since we were both transient and poor, our primary form of entertainment was libraries, and I have library cards from dozens of random libraries all over the country. It would be so cool to me to get a copy of my book in every one of them.

 

[Nameback]

My goals are very simple. I want to tell a story that I would enjoy reading, and a story with themes that matter to me. My highest hope is that my books might make people ask questions about political and philosophical issues that they had never questioned before.

Also, I do have material hopes for my books. I want to self-publish and earn enough money to have going-out money. Realistically I think $300+ bucks a month is very attainable, because I believe that my prose is marketable. Ideally, my stretch-goal is that I'd love to be self-supporting off of my writing, an I think I am capable of that, both due to the quality of my writing and also my knowledge of promotion. I worked in political campaigns so I know how to organize, grow grass-roots support, and manage online campaigns.

 

[LadyKatina]

Like Nameback, my main goal is just to tell stories I'd enjoy reading. Finishing things is important to me right now. Taking a story all the way from "once upon a time" to "the end." I said this in my introduction, but I pretty much quit writing fiction altogether for over a decade. So right now, my goal is just to produce the best stories I can, and trust that my craft will follow diligent production, and that the external things (readers, sales, and reviews) will follow production and improved craft.

I'm very good at starting things, but historically awful at seeing them through to completion.

 

[kayd_mon]

My goal is to publish my work. However, it's probably more realistic for me to adopt tlbodine's goal. I'm having a lot of trouble with my current project.

 

[wordwalker]

My goal is to finish my current novel--

today. Last chapter, here I come!

 

[Telcontar]

Best of luck, wordwalker!

Personally, my goal is utter domination of fantasy and science fiction. I will stand like the love-child of Robert Heinlein and George R.R. Martin astride my genres of choice!

Or, you know. To attract enough of an audience to earn a living by writing fiction. That'd be cool too.

 

[Garren Jacobsen]

My goal is to become a published author and to be famous at it as well. I also wan to gain a large enough following where I will be able to experiment with legal and political fantasy novels.

 

[Rullenzar]

I love stories. Doesn't matter if I get them through books, movies, games. I enjoy epic scale tales. There is just one problem. Not many live up to my expectations and while watching/reading said stories ideas formulate about how I would have done it. All of which sound better to me and people I share these ideas with. The only option I see here is making my own story and having it exactly the way I want it. A lot of stories start off strong and bring you to the climax with so many expectations and just fall flat right at the end. It infuriates me. I believe if given the chance I can make something flawless how ever that may sound. Having been disappointed by so many stories I truly believe I can give a reader exactly what they want.

Only problem is sitting down and actually writing it

 

[Xaysai]

All I really want to do is write stories which people will enjoy.

I don't need to make a living at it, and quite honestly, I don't know if I want the pressure of having to make a living at it, I just want people to see that I've posted something to my lame website/blog and say, "oh, something new from Dan! I've got to go check it out!"

 

[Wanara009]

My long term goal is to make stories that will entertain people. I don't want to make money out of it, just to tell stories so people will remember me as 'that guy that make good stories' instead of just 'that boring guy who did nothing'.

My short term goal however, is to finish just one continual story before year's end.

 

[Chessie]

My goal is to entertain while simultaneously honoring the characters and their world...all the while feeding my ego.

 

[Steerpike]

Goal:

To make J.K. Rowling weep at how much smaller her royalty checks are than mine.

 

[glutton]

It would be so awesome to have people on forum make screennames based on characters of mine...

 

[Chessie]

Goal:

To make J.K. Rowling weep at how much smaller her royalty checks are than mine.

Ha, this is great.

 

[Dio]

Another big one for me would be to have people speculate about the next installment of a series I wrote. I've spent a lot of time analyzing and making theories about other people's work, I think it would be really cool to see people do it with mine.