Mid-Year Goals: How to Reassess, Realign, and Recommit
How Are You Doing On Your Annual Goals?
If you’ve followed me for a while, you know I love doing annual reviews. It’s an important part of my year, a tradition that I feel is as vital to my writing process as my daily 1000 words.
Since we’re at the mid-point of the year, and I have some seismic shifts happening in my life, I thought it would be wise to take a look at the 2022 review and do a mid-year assessment to see if I’ve hit my goals for the first two quarters, and see if I need to make any changes for the rest of the year.
For the practical—words written, books read—I am, as always, behind. I tend to write heavily in the summer, which has just started, and read more then, too. Tour ate up almost two months of writing time, and I’ve gotten stuck in Reader’s Death Valley a few times. And, of course, I lost three weeks when Jameson passed. Just nonfunctional, and I’m still crawling out of that horror. So I’m currently sitting at 50k/200k and 32/80 books reads.
I’ve published three novels so far this year (It’s One of Us, The Wolves Come at Night, The Keeper of Flames) and two short stories (These Cold Strangers, Louche 49). I have another novel coming out on Halloween (The Prophecy of Wind), and three more short stories before the end of the year (Guardians of Fury, Guardians of Power, X House) so I can’t say I am totally slacking off. Though I swear, it feels that way sometimes. I am my own worst taskmaster, and though I know, know in my very soul, that my slow productivity method of writing 1000 words a day gets me to the finish line again and again, when I’m in the throes of drafting, as I am now, every moment I’m not writing—and there are a lot of them—feels like I am jaking it.
Am I the only one who feels like this? Who gets down on themselves for not accomplishing anything, even when you clearly are? It’s really pointless; at the end of the month, I can see appreciable progress made on projects, so I know to ignore this voice. But it’s still hard sometimes not to self-flagellate because I read a book and redid a website and snuggled the cat and wrote an essay (ahem) instead of writing new words on the novel I’m drafting.
No. I do not write 1000 words a day like an automaton. That’s my goal, and when I look at my spreadsheet at the end of the year, I get a better sense of how much I do write every day, but it’s an average. My daily average word count right now is a measly 250. But that’s with a big fat zero in February and March, and three weeks of bereavement. Take those out and I’m up to 490 daily average, which is reputable. Five hundred words a day averages out to 182,500 annualized, which I’d be damn proud to achieve in a good year. By the end of August, I’ll be in the 700s, and then the fall, which is full of drafting, will take me to my usual average, which sits annually in the 800s. I will make the 200k goal.
I could be writing more. But I also need a life. I need to fill the well, and I need to keep up the level of my craft. I’ve always written fast, and that’s great, but the quality matters, too, and if that means going a little slower, focusing on the story a little deeper as I draft instead of during revision, so be it. And my heart hurts, so there are plenty of moments when the words simply aren’t there.
I’d planned out my year with a ridiculous travel schedule in the first quarter, then things gradually slowed through the summer and into the fall. That’s been shot a bit, as we have out-of-state family matters that need my attention and business matters that have also necessitated a few trips. And then, hell, I figured I might as well start researching the next book, too, so the quiet summer and fall has turned into a bit of a bear schedule-wise.
Happily, I work almost better on the road than I do at home, mostly because there aren’t those pesky distractions (right now, someone in my neighborhood is chopping down a tree, and the thunk thunk thunk of their axe is making me both admire their physical wellbeing and want to grab said axe and…stow it in my garage.) Laundry, dinner, cleaning, and gardening are all necessary, and all take me away from my work, whereas on the road, it’s simply experiences and the words they engender.
But all of this pales when I look at my theme for 2023: Ritual.
…Ritual is more than daily habits and parties and social media sabbaticals. It’s about travel, togetherness, unplugging completely, and respecting breaks. It is about reclaiming my time, reclaiming my space, reclaiming my creativity, and doing what’s right for me and my little family. It’s about saying “No, thank you” often and with great joy and zero guilt. It is about the transformation that comes from expectation, the abundance that comes from daily work, and the confidence that comes with being older and wiser, knowing that rituals are vital to a happy, healthy life.
Here’s the deal. Goals are excellent and necessary. But we’re coming out of the most difficult years any of us have ever known. The world was broken by the pandemic. It’s like when your computer shuts off during a sudden storm; it takes a while to reboot, to get all the windows back open, to find your place in the work. Our mental health is suffering. Our tempers are frayed. Strangers are perfectly content to vent their frustrations on you, both online and in person. Even people you know have changed.
So perhaps now is the time to lean deeper into the ideas above. Travel. Togetherness. Unplugging. Respecting breaks. Maybe those things are a little more important than daily word averages and goal analysis. Maybe the only way we heal from sorrows big and small is by turning off our computers and meeting face-to-face with friends, with family. Maybe there’s a bigger long-term gain in shutting down after 300 words and taking the dog for a walk, or finding a quiet spot to read. To stop and smell the roses—this cliche has never been more important. It might just save the human race.
Maybe what you’ve done today is enough for now. It will always be there for you tomorrow.
Oh, no! 🫣 I'm not even close to achieve any of my goals set for 2023. I have a lot of reasons why I'm so behind. Still, I could have done better. But, right now is not the time to beat myself up, instead I have to let go and go with the flow. ~ 📚💗