Your Goals Should Be Realistic And Attainable

[Christopher Wright]

I posted this phrase in another thread, but since it was posted after I stated that my goal was to have Neil Gaiman read one of my stories and wish he'd written it himself, I hope it's clear I don't believe this is true.

Though, as with everything I post, it's riddled with caveats. I mean, we all have goals that range up and down the scale of realistic attainability: for example, "my goal is to be published" is a goal that many would consider far more attainable than, for example, creating feelings of envy in a very successful author.

Having realistic goals are actually good things, but beyond those realistic goals, I believe everyone should pile ridiculous, unrealistic goals on top of it. It's the unrealistic goals that make you stretch. You might never be able to reach "I will write a story that will cause J.R.R. Tolkien to return from the dead and weep tears of pure, unguarded joy" but if you're actually, seriously striving for something like that, then each attempt at hitting that mark is going to bring you that much closer to infinity.[1]

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[1]It should be noted that infinity, being infinite, will be unattainable. Also, due to the scope involved, any progress toward it will feel like no progress at all. Because progress is always finite. Hey, nobody said having an unrealistic goal was fair.

 

[Devor]

Having realistic goals are actually good things, but on top of those realistic goals, I believe everyone should pile ridiculous, unrealistic goals on top of it.

I don't know about pile, but I think it's good to shoot for goals that are a little bit of a stretch, to look at the more realistic goals as a benchmark of progress, and to have a dream about where you want to end up.

 

[RedMorningSky]

I think it's good to set realistic goals, but then still have big aspirations if that will help inspire you to write your best work. If you want to write that book that will make your favorite author wish he/she had written it then that's a great thing to inspire your writing, but don't necessarily set that as a standard that you need to reach because then you are setting yourself up for disappointment.

 

[BWFoster78]

I don't know, Christopher. This kinda sounds like a rule. Maybe I should find a brick to toss at you.

Seriously, I agree completely. You should definitely set realistic goals, but you also need to challenge yourself.

 

[Christopher Wright]

Well struck, sir! Well struck!

 

[Ireth]

Maybe I should find a brick to toss at you.

Well struck, sir! Well struck!

You guys crack me up. Just saying. XD

 

[The Dark One]

Goals change as you progress through your writing career.

When I started out, 20 years ago, my dreams were very large - to be the most celebrated and best loved writer of my generation. And why not? Why aim for anything less?

By the time I had finished my first novel, 5 years later I had a new goal...just to get published.

Having finished a novel, I had learnt a lot - mainly about how hamfisted and over the top my writing was. So I developed a new set of goals - all about improving as a writer - stripping out that which was bad and identifying that which was good and improving it. My second novel was immeasurably better than the first and I started to get serious feedback from publishers (who still rejected me). By now I realised that I was actually a pretty good writer, but I had to find the right story.

That was my new goal - to find and write the right story - and that was my third book, which was snapped up by the first fiction publisher I showed it to.

Funnily enough, the further I progressed the more modest my goals became. I'd still love to be enormously successful but the big thing you learn when you escape the darwinian struggle of the slush pile is that a worse struggle awaits - the darwinian struggle of the bookshop. That's when it gets truly vicious. So once again my goals have moderated - I now have two books out, with a third just finished and two more in development. My goal now is just to keep publishing a book every 12 - 18 months with a view to having say 5 books out in three to four years, all of them bringing in something, to eventually justify a change of career to full time writer. Who knows, maybe one of them will really take off, and if it does then all of my backlist will take off and I really will be a full time writer.

When I started, making my living from writing full time was a ridiculous pipe dream, but now it's very realistic - even probable.

A side reflection of my progress is the attitude of friends. When I started they hated me talking about my unrealistic writing dreams (they never said so, but I could tell). They didn't take me seriously at all but over the years they started to respect my persistence, if not my lack of success. Now, they think of me as a writer first and a lawyer second. They no longer regard my dreams as ridiculous, because they are tantalisingly close.

If you're prepared to stick in there for the long haul and willing to learn from your mistakes, then any goal is attainable, no matter how ridiculous.

Persistence and willingness to change and adapt are probably the most important lessons I can impart to anyone.

 

[The Dark One]

By the way, when I say change and adapt, I don't mean lose sight of your values...I mean stop hanging on to the old ways/stories when they palpably aren't working.