04 Jul 2018

What Are Your Goals With Your Writing? [Roundup]

Richard Lowe

Writing

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Once a person decides to write, what goals to they want to achieve? That’s the question for this week.

What Are Your Goals With Your Writing?

Here are their unedited responses.

Click on a photo to go directly to the author’s Facebook page.

Richard Lowe

What are my goals with my writing?

First, I want to make a good living as a freelance writer. this involves ghostwriting books, blogs, LinkedIn profiles, articles, case studies and other things. I especially enjoy writing books, and I’m working on my 23rd ghostwritten book right now, which is due to be done this week. I’ve achieved the basic part of this goal, and that I’m paying the bills and the rent and so forth with my income from writing.
Second, I written to Amazon Kindle bestsellers, which was pretty cool. One of them sold 10,000 copies and reached number 43 for three days on the Kindle top 100 list. I want to be on the New York Times and other major bestseller lists. That’s my second significant goal. And then once that’s achieved, to do it over and over.
Third, I like helping others, so I put together a series of writing training courses, each targeted at a very narrow area where writers need help. My goal is to make this take off and honestly help other writers grow and become better.
Another goal is to lead a group of writers of all levels of abilities and help them by leveraging the power of the community to increase the promotional and marketing reach of each individual dramatically. By working together, writers can reach a larger audience more easily and build more followers for their works.
Finally, I want to interview a large number of writers, again of all levels of their journeys, and share those interviews so that others may learn and be encouraged to succeed.

Wendy Jones

What are my goals. Fab question. My first, very short term, goal is to launch Bertie the Buffalo out into the world. Bertie is based on a real buffalo who went missing last year. Scotland’s very own wee escape artist is missing again as the books haven’t arrived yet. The wee scallywag likes to have people hunting for him. My medium term goal is to sell a million books. I like that number as it has a nice ring to it. Another goal is for Bertie to be a best seller. The little chap deserves it.

Kyle Waller

Straight-forward: find my passion and find a way to get paid for it while mentoring the world and erasing the stigma surrounding Mental Illness. Writing isn’t something I do when I’m bored or have a free moment- it’s an addiction I aim to nurture into a full-blown entrepreneurship that takes off in my home country first (the United States), then spread to the world, then eventually share with the aliens in the far beyond (ok- we’re not at that level just yet- but you get the point). This is what I was meant to do and what I will inevitably succeed in bringing to fruition. There are yet dark corners of Humanity where evil reigns- they say the pen is mightier than the sword- I say it’s mightier than the sword but not as mighty as the mob. Words become knowledge if nurtured with care, knowledge becomes ambition, ambition becomes action and action sires change. While I’m only in the beginning phases of my ambition, I’m farther than most because I never walked away, no matter who tried to convince me to walk off the path.

Facebook: Kyle Waller

Bjørn Larssen

Short-term, I want to write the best book I possibly can. My biggest fear is not related to sales or reviews. It’s the thought that five years from now I will look at my novel and cringe, wishing it didn’t have my name on the cover and that I could destroy every copy in the universe. It is this thought that has so far kept me going through 19 drafts and 22 months of work on Storytellers. It also made me rewrite my second work-in-progress completely from scratch twice because of beta-readers’ feedback. I don’t need to see my name on the cover or find my book in a bookstore. (Shameful confession: I only visited an actual bookstore once in the last three years, because the person I was waiting for was late, and I was bored.)

Long-term? I want to write more books, learn more, see more places, meet more people, hear and tell more stories. I want to become better with each 100 thousand word draft I produce, to continue creating, reach further, develop, grow. In a way, it’s the same as the short-term goal. I want to turn my characters into living, breathing people (and sometimes elves or Gods).

I’m realistic (or cynical?) enough to know it’s rather unlikely that my books will be turned into Hollywood blockbusters, or that I will start my days by swimming in money, cackling maniacally, George R.R. Martin style. I’ve been making music for over fifteen years. Sometimes a song of mine comes on shuffle and I think “this is awesome, what’s that?” only to realise I wrote and recorded it. This is how I would like to feel about my books years from now.

www.bjornlarssen.com
www.twitter.com/bjornlarssen
www.facebook.com/bjornlarssenwriter

Paty Jager

Early in our marriage my husband realized he had a happy wife when I had time to write. My goal with my writing is to write stories that entertain me and the reader. That I am now covering my writing expenses and helping out with monthly bills is a bonus. I will continue to write until I can either no longer type or no longer retain a thought long enough to plot a book. My writing goal is happiness.

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Lionel Snell

My goals surprise me by their loftiness.

Like most, I am not 100% overjoyed by the realities of existence. I also spend a lot of time trying to find reasons why this Earth falls short of Paradise (not sure how many do likewise). I notice how attitudes, prejudices, feelings and formulaic thinking often create the very conditions that are most upsetting.

So over the years I have spent a lot of my time exploring new ways of looking at the world, experiencing it and thinking about it – ways that I have found to be more interesting – ranging from more fun to more healing.

It is not easy in a casual chat to convey a profound shift in perception, so about 40 years ago I took to writing down my discoveries and quite a few people found them interesting. And some found them positively useful.

Then I began publishing and distributing them in the 1970s around ‘alternative’ bookshops in the UK. When they had run out of print I issued them as PDF e-books. Then I sought out a pioneering POD service, and they keep selling at a steady trickle.

I have had many unsolicited responses: that my books have been stimulating, inspiring, even ‘life-changing’. I myself find such responses to be so stimulating, inspiring, even ‘life-changing’, that I have never been very worried about the many free pirate copies out there. Especially as several people have written to me saying that they got a pirated copy and liked it so much that they have since bought the book.

Life is still charmingly imperfect, but I get huge satisfaction at undermining those imperfections, That is the real goal. The response from readers is a sign that I do sometimes score.

Debbie Young

I have goals on different levels:

Financial: to earn my living from my writing – and to improve my standard of living over time as I write more books and reach more readers (not that I’m materialistic, but I’d like to travel more and also to have no money worries and to be able to set a substantial sum aside for my old age)
Marketing: to produce a catalogue consisting of a number of different series, each of which draws in different readers, who may also want to try the other series and keep following them as I add new volumes. I see this as the equivalent of a conjuror setting more and more plates spinning at once, so that I can keep setting up new plates as the others go on spinning (and raising revenue)
Social: although my cozy mystery novels and short stories are mostly light, fun, humorous reads, they all also contain serious social and moral messages, some of them general about society e.g, look out for your neighbour, be more tolerant of others, try to see the world through their eyes rather than condemning them (appropriate messages for the age we live in), and others specifically yet gently campaigning against things I feel strongly about and want to raise awareness of, e.g. how to avoid controlling relationships, the perils of gambling, the dangers of religious intolerance

While fulfilling the financial goals will enable me to keep writing full-time, and meeting the marketing objectives will make me more likely to reach my financial targets, it is the social goals that are by far the most important to me, and these are my prime drivers for writing in general, and I particular for writing the kind of books that I write.

Author website: www.authordebbieyoung.com
Twitter: @DebbieYoungBN

Jo Ullah

I have a lot of stories in my head and I want to get as many as possible, to the best of my ability, out on the page – be that paper or electronic. I hope to get faster without dropping any of the quality, and grow my skill set too.I’m really enjoying the company of other writers I been finding over the last few years, so I would like that to continue in the positive and productive light I have been currently so lucky to experience. I want to be able to share what I’ve learnt and encourage other new writers to express their ideas. And I want to achieve long lasting financial security through my writing.

www.joullah.com

Thomas J Eyre

The answer to the question what are my goals with my writing is quite short.
Firstly I have stories clamouring inside me that want to get out, so my first goal is to write the stories for the sake of the stories that want to be written.

Then I see my writing as a new career path to follow and one that I can physically do, though the mental agility that is necessary for an author I do find a challenge due to poor short-term memory

https://thomasjeyre.com
https://www.facebook.com/thomas.eyre.3760
https://twitter.com/ThomasJEyre1
https://www.instagram.com/thomasjeyre1/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-eyre-a43aaa172/

Lou Holly

I always aim very high with my goals, and that goes for my writing as well. When my wife and I published Keep Rockin’ Magazine we ended up with subscribers in all fifty states and eleven countries. Now that I’m writing crime novels, my goals are New York Times reviews and film versions of my books.

https://www.amazon.com/SOUTHSIDE-HUSTLE-gripping-thriller-suspense-ebook/dp/B01DJHH030

https://www.amazon.com/RAZORBACK-gripping-crime-fiction-suspense-ebook/dp/B074THF6NY

Sherry Linker

Setting writing goals is a critical time management habit I set for myself. Otherwise, I get distracted by new ideas or projects, and before I know it, I can easily fall behind in my writing. I set up an action plan with goals for rough drafts, edits and finals. For long term goals, I keep a notebook of ideas. Currently I’m working on a novel, “Haunting of Maple Creek” while outlining another novel. As a former magazine editor, I learned to work well under multiple deadlines. In addition, I joined NaNoWriMo for the first time this month. This should help me exceed my writing goals for November. If anyone else has participated in this, I’d love to hear about your experience!

facebook: https://facebook.com/authorsherrylinker
Instagram: https://instagram.com/authorsherrylinker

Bonnie Dillabough

I hone my craft by reading the best in my genre, studying styles, plot arcs, characterization and world-building. More importantly I practice my craft daily by making and keeping appointments with myself to focus entirely on putting words on the page.

I set daily word count goals and exceed them. I participate generously with my fellow writers in forums and mentoring groups.

I write about topics that are interesting to me and about concepts I am passionate about and make my readers feel that passion. It’s what writers do.

Dixie Maria Carlton

My goals for my writing: Mine are simple simple but not easy ones.

To earn a good living from my writing, with consistent income for the rest of my life, also affording me a lifestyle of travel, exploration, and research in interesting places.
To have one of my books be turned into a movie, during my lifetime, because -wow, how interesting that would be. 🙂
perhaps the most important one, is to have my writing serve as great ignition for good conversation.

Instagram @curatingconversations

Jo-Anne Blanco

I’ve written a little here about delving into ancient mythology, legend and folklore, and how I relish revitalising and reinventing powerful tales and characters for a modern readership, all while creating my own original stories around them. I love the fact that there is a seemingly endless wealth of material to draw upon and adapt, much of it ignored, forgotten or belittled by today’s mainstream culture. With my Young Adult book series, Fata Morgana, one of my goals is to ignite an interest and fascination in these stories and characters among young readers; to inspire them to seek out more obscure yet resonant legends and learn about them for themselves.

People have asked me why I chose Morgan le Fay as my protagonist rather than inventing a new character who could have embarked upon a similar journey. It’s an interesting question. I’ve always loved Morgan and feel very defensive of her. I think, ultimately, the reasoning behind Morgan as the central figure of the series is her place in literary history as a much maligned character, the target of an excessive amount of fear, vitriol and venom. She’s basically a template for how women who step outside of social norms have been depicted from the early Middle Ages onwards. You can almost literally trace the history of misogyny and how women were perceived at different times during the centuries through the portrayals of Morgan le Fay in literature. I want to set the record straight, reinvent her, give her her own inner life, and approach her from an enlightened, 21^st century perspective.

While there are a number of books about Morgan, she is almost always seen through the eyes of others, and is pretty much always either an appendage to Arthur and/or Merlin’s stories, or is inextricably linked to them in some way, even when she’s ostensibly the novel’s protagonist. There are novels which occasionally focus on her outside of an Arthurian context but they seem to be few and far between. Morgan is portrayed sympathetically in some of these books, but in the last decade or so, I’ve noticed the portrayal of Morgan in literature and popular culture reverting back to the one-dimensional villain and an age-old, medieval-like misogyny once more – again, I feel, a sad reflection of our time.

To counter this, I am giving Morgan her own epic tale, as the multi-dimensional heroine of her own life and adventures. It is a story which will be the equivalent of any Arthurian or Norse saga, but centred and focused entirely upon her, and more often than not veering completely away from genre expectations and literary tradition. In this modern era, a very bleak dark age for women and girls in many parts of the world, I aim to do for Morgan what T. H. White did for Arthur in The Once and Future King, and Mary Stewart did for Merlin in her wonderful Merlin trilogy. While centering a known, mythic character, I plan to tell a unique, exciting, inspiring, and thought-provoking ongoing story that has never been told before, and to reinvent my heroine for a new generation and a new age.

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My website: https://jo-anneblanco.com/
My author Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JoAnneBlancoBooks/

Robin Donovan

My primary goal has always been to entertain my readers and make them laugh, while also making them think. To give them an escape from the troubles in their lives. Based on feedback (and not just from my mother), I am grateful that I seem to be on track with that goal. There is no better feeling than when a reader is genuinely effusive about my work.

When I read this Roundup question, it got me thinking about my goals beyond the readers’ reaction and I realized it’s a very basic goal. I want to enjoy the writing experience even more.

That’s not as simple as it sounds.

I enjoy writing cozy murder mysteries and I enjoy doing the speaking and signing engagements, hell, I even enjoy editing, but all these components can interconnect in a way that makes writing either a joy or an exercise in self-debasement or both – kind of like a seesaw.

To start with I enjoy the writing, but feeling pressure to hurry up can bring that enjoyment to a screeching halt. Once the book is released there’s a huge amount of work to gain any level of awareness. I actually enjoy guest blogging and interviewing, I genuinely enjoy public speaking. But if you’ve ever done an author event to an audience of two, even considering there are torrential rains outside, you know how demoralizing that can be.

Although many of us don’t get into writing for the money (a lot of you are laughing out loud right now) it is nice to actually see some return on your investment. There was a time when I referred to my writing as a “very costly hobby.” Although I still don’t rely on my writing as my livelihood, there’s no denying that monetary gain is a measure of success, and when you’ve poured your guts out to create your masterpiece, any measure of success is a plus.

One day euphoric success, the next day humbling disappointment, and repeat. My great grandmother had a saying that seems to fit “what never makes you laugh will never make you cry.”

My goal would be to see the scales a bit more heavily weighted toward the laughing.

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Richard Lowe

Owner & Senior Writer at The Writing King

Richard is the Owner and Senior Writer for The Writing King, a bestselling author, and ghostwriter. He's written and published 63 books, ghostwritten 48+ books, as well as hundreds of blog articles.