Last Quarter Blues
October begins the last quarter of 2021. Are you ready?
After a lot of trial and error, I have figured out that keeping myself on track with my goals means planning. Just setting big goals in the beginning of January and hoping I hit them by the end of December doesn’t do it for me. I create yearly goals in various areas, then work backwards by quarters so I know what I need to accomplish to achieve my goals by the end of the year. Then I work backward by month, and by week.
At least, that was the idea. I admit, I haven’t been faithful to tracking the weekly activities to my monthly goals. The monthly goals have been more intentions, anyway. Especially over the last three months, I have found myself slipping. Maybe because it was summer, and I felt like taking it easy. But now I find myself staring down the end of the year, and not wanting to end up in January feeling like I wasted the second half of 2021.
In writing, my two main goals for 2021 are:
To get an agent for my current book on sub
To finish the first draft of the next book
I actually think the first goal is a bad one, because I don’t have control of the outcome. Yes, it would be nice to have an agent for that book, but I can’t control whether that will happen. All I can control is the number of agents I send it to. Right now, it’s languishing, because so many of the agents on my list are not accepting queries right now, and haven’t been for a while. I actually think it is harder to get an agent than ever before: they are inundated with queries (hundreds per week) and it takes something not just good, but truly original to stand out - but not too original, or they won’t see where it fits in the marketplace. It truly is a needle-in-a-haystack scenario, and I’m seriously debating whether it might be a better use of my time and energy to turn to self-publishing. However, for the moment, I will make it my goal to hit 50 queries on this book this year. This means about 3 per week between now and the end of the year. Think that’s a lot? I used to, but querying has changed. It really is a numbers game now. At that point, I’ll reassess and see how I feel about continuing to query this book in 2022, or turn to self-publishing.
The second goal is still doable, but I have to buckle down. I’m about halfway through, which means I have to push on, while making notes about what needs to be changed in revision. But as they say, you can’t revise if you don’t have a draft, so that will be my focus. That means about ten pages per week, not including any reworking of my Inside Outline or other notes.
See what I mean? Getting real with the dates and the numbers means you know exactly what you need to do each week to hit the goal. Nothing vague about it. How much time will I need each day, or each week, to hit that goal? Once I know that, I can put it in my calendar and work accordingly. I can set aside one day for queries, and five days for writing, and have one day to rest or catch up.
I know some people may balk at having such a strict schedule. They feel that it stifles creativity. I say, let’s compare what we’ve accomplished at the end of three months. If I stick to my schedule, at least most of the time, I’m willing to bet I’ll have significantly more done than someone who thinks they’ll get around to writing when they feel like it. Something about creating a schedule alerts your brain to keep working on a project, to keep the ideas flowing. Forgetting about it for long periods, on the other hand, makes it that much harder to get the wheels turning again.
Did you set goals for 2021? October-December is the final quarter of 2021. It’s time to look at your annual goals and see where you stack up. If, like me, you don’t want to feel disappointed in yourself come January 1, 2022, think about what you will do now to avoid that outcome. Make a plan, and commit to it. Get an accountability partner, or a coach, or find some way to keep yourself on track, so that three months from now, you can look back on all you accomplished.
