I haven't been doing my targets this month, and my word count has slipped. It's strange that the act of posting my targets motivates me into getting things done, but I better get back to it.
I have a few main targets. They tend to change a little from month to month depending on my mood.
Submissions-- four subs to the pro press every week (can be an old story).Wordcount -- 5K of finished fiction/poetry per week. (counting only work that is ready to submit).
Write1Sub1 -- write a new piece every week, sub every week.
These targets are useful because they are within my control. A target like 'get one acceptance from Fantasy and Science Fiction' is not helpful, because it's something that I can't control. This is my usual target outline:
Week 1 eg. subs 4 word count 8K new poems 2 poems subbed 1
Week 2 Week 3
Week 4
Runnig Total
Monthly Target
I just fill in the blanks as I go along. The weekly target seems to work for me. A monthly target is too vague, and a daily target is too subject to the vagaries of life.
Here's an example of how it works for me. When I totted up my monthly word count, I found it came to 5K, which is quite low for me (did a lot of poetry in the first two weeks). Now to meet my targets, instead of working on my shiny new work in progress (a steampunk story at a very early stage), I'll work on an almost finished 15K story from from last month. Sticking to the targets I've set out, really puts me on track.
What about you? Do you find writing targets useful?
