Well, it's that time of year again, time to revisit what's been accomplished, and what will be accomplished in the coming year. I've always been a huge supporter of goals. Setting them, busting tail to meet them, and having nifty little boxes to check off on my "Project Plan". Although, in reflection of 2010, I realized that some "stuff" happening near the end of the year bogged me down. No... correction... the stuff didn't bog me down, I allowed it to.

So my first goal moving into 2011 is to revamp and find a schedule to get that production momentum swinging again.

I now have a timer at my desk. I'm developing a daily calendar for the first few months to make sure I develop the habits I want to form. I've looked at what I can control: my productivity. My focus. My commitment.

I've looked at what I can't control: children interrupting, things that crop up on a day-to-day basis (otherwise known as environmental factors.)

So the end result looks something like this:

1. Fifteen minutes per day (thank you, Shannon), on Twitter. Then it gets turned off and stays off until the next day. I will find someone to engage with each day, be it friend already, or a friend-to-be.

2. Two blog posts a week. Tuesdays and Fridays.

3. One hour devoted to promotions, three times a week.

I haven't figured out the schedule on a per-hour basis, yet, but that's what I'm looking at professionally, outside of writing itself.

As for writing -- these are fairly lofty. But I concurr completely with Dean Wesley Smith,'s remarks about productivity and prolific writers in the year 2011.

Another thing I agree with Dean about is that a writing goal has to be different than a writing dream. Goals we can control. Dreams we cannot. Selling a book is a dream. Writing a book to shop it, in hopes it will sell, is a goal.

That said.

My goal for 2011 is to compose 7 full length novels. Figuring a rough total of words at 700,000, that breaks down to roughly 2000 per day, including weekends.

Completely and utterly doable. For me, at least -- every writer is different.

There will be days that I don't accomplish this. Looking at a full weekend off, that would be 4000 words I'd need to make up in the following week, which breaks down to only 800 additional words daily, over the course of five days. On average I can do 2500 in one writing sesssion. Bumping this up by 300 is not troublesome.

What am I going to write? Well, that's posing the most problems on my end. I have things I really want to do. Things I have a moderate love for. Things I could let go. So, I decided I wasn't going to commit to 7 ideas on my vast "Idea List". Instead, I'm breaking it out like this:

1 -- 2 Templar romances. (This is a concrete)
2 -- A Christmas project for TWRP (also a concrete)
3 -- Complete the "Special Project" (also a concrete)
4 -- A historical to be determined later
5 -- 2 other books, undetermined at this time, written as the urge strikes and based on which "Idea List" plot strikes my fancy when the time's right.

I also don't believe I'm going to try and commit to setting the order in which I write these yet. As long as I get my 2000 words in daily, I think I'll let the creative passion just flow and see where it takes me. If the time comes where I find it stagnates or stalls, I'll look at some more forcible means of setting and reaching goals. Like marking out "This book first. This book second."

The only exception to that is my TWRP project has to be done by an early 2011 deadline. So that one will be slotted accordingly.

Okay. All of those are goals I have the power and ability to control, work toward, and reach. Whether they sell or not is a dream. But they certainly can't sell if I don't write them.

What about you? What are your 2011 goals at this point?

~Claire
www.claireashgrove.com
www.toristclaire.com