This is The Write Now Podcast with Sarah Werner, Episode 2: Five Steps To Transforming Your Writing Goals Into A Reality.

[Intro music.]

Welcome to Write Now, the podcast that helps aspiring writers to find the time, energy and courage you need to pursue your passion and to write every day. I’m your host, Sarah Werner, and I’d like to share with you some feedback I received after last week’s show. This is actually — I’m going to be perfectly candid here — this is actually an email from my brother, Harrison, who lives in St. Louis. And he’s an architect. I know that this podcast is about writing, but really I think a lot of what we talk about here can extend to a greater realm of creativity. I think Harrison really responded to that.

So he wrote, “Hey, Sarah, I completely agree with you about the fear thing. Architecture is similar just instead of a blank screen with an accusatory blinking cursor, it’s a blank piece of trace paper or blank grid lines in rhino. I always go through a period where I’m convinced that every good idea has been used and that I’m just rearranging space for no reason.”

He goes on to talk about other sibling stuff that I’m sure you have no interest in, so I’ll stop there. But I really think he’s onto something, or at least what he said certainly resonated with some struggles I’ve had in my own writing and overall in my own creative life. I think that no matter what you end up doing, no matter what your occupation is, at some point you’re going to run into cynics or you might even find yourself becoming a cynic, and that’s okay. But what they’re going to tell you is usually along the lines of, “Why are you wasting your time doing this? Why bother?” Right?

I’ve heard people say that there are only three stories, and they’ve all been told already. And everything that we create is just a recreation of these stories that have already been invented. And yeah, to be honest, that makes writing feel a little pointless sometimes. In fact, a lot of people point out that the ancient Greeks have already created these or that William Shakespeare has already created these stories and nothing that you ever do could be as great as what they did. In fact, some people may even point to a verse in the Bible, which always pops into my mind. It’s from the first chapter of Ecclesiastes, and it says, “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again. There is nothing new under the sun.”

I think that there are two ways to look at this mentality. The first way is to kind of nod your head and say, “Yeah, what am I doing? What do I think I’m doing here? I’m not creating anything new. There’s nothing new to create. It’s all been done before. Everything’s been invented. So why bother wasting my time?” And I’m going to be honest with you — I’ve thought these things myself before too, and they can really give you pause and they can really destroy your momentum.

But there’s another way to look at this. I know I’ve said this before, but I very firmly believe that people have immense creative power. It’s one of the things that the human race does exceptionally well, but not everything we create is awesome. There’s ham salad, the Yugo, the Star Wars prequels, the last couple of seasons of Lost, drop-crotch pants, Zubas, air horns. You get the idea, but behind every one of those terrible inventions is a beautiful spark of human ingenuity. For every one of those terrible inventions, there is a wonderful thing that has been created.

Just because there may only be a limited number of story archetypes (which, by the way, I do not think is true and we’ll discuss any further podcast episode), that doesn’t mean that you can’t pull new meaning out of the words that you write or that you can’t innovate and design something new or reinterpret something that has been misinterpreted or reveal a feeling that others have felt before you, and that others will feel after you, but nobody has talked about yet. We’re such complex individuals that I really believe that there is no limit to what we can learn about ourselves and what we can help others learn about themselves. I mean, we write to find truth and beauty, right? At least to some degree and if truth and beauty are infinite, well then we’ve still got a long way to go in running out of things to say. So thank you for your feedback, Harrison.

And if anyone else would like to share feedback with me, I’m always open to that and I’d be happy to discuss it on the air, just visit my website, sarahwarner.com. That’s S-A-R-A-H-W-E-R-N-E-R dot com and visit the contact page. There’s a little form you can fill out. It’s super fun. I have a very loose definition of super fun, but seriously, you are unique and wonderful and smart. If you feel like you have a story to share, then share it because you are unique and nobody else will ever write the same thing with the same approach and the same passion and the same emotion and the same word choice and the same twists and turns as what your unique mind can come up with. And the world needs that, the world needs your story.

Today’s topic with a capital T is: five steps to making your writing goals a reality. Goals are important, not just as an end in and of themselves, but as a vehicle for your own success when you’re writing. Today we’re going to walk through five steps… and I want to be very careful. I don’t want to say “the” five steps because these don’t come from any high-up place. These are just my own five personal steps that I take when I go to set and achieve goals. Every writer might tell you something a little different. So keep your mind open, keep your ears open, and hopefully you’ll find something that works for you.

But we’re going to walk through my five steps, which are:

1. Discovering and defining your goal.

2. Establishing your own realistic expectations.

3. Translating those realistic expectations into realistic goals.

4. Sticking to your goals.

5. Moving beyond your goals, A.K.A. forming a habit, A.K.A. internalizing your goals.

As we go along, I’m going to follow these five steps with you, because who doesn’t need a little help holding themselves accountable?

All right. Number one, define your end goal. And what I really want you to think about here is not the goal itself. What I want you to think about here is what you actually want to create and I want to make that distinction because a lot of times people will say, “Oh, I want to become a famous writer.” Well, okay. I mean, that’s a great goal, but what I’m more interested in here in this first step is the end product or result. What do you want to create? What’s your project? What specifically are you going to be working on? I know this seems really basic and silly, but it’s still a crucial part of the process. You got to figure out what you’re working on, and we’ll have a session down the road where we’ll discuss, “Oh, I have 700 million ideas and I don’t know which one to turn into a novel.” We’ll have a session later on about discernment, but for now pick one of those projects. For me, this project is going to be a novel.

Specifically, I think it’s going to be a speculative fiction novel, but I don’t want to get too specific here because sometimes my work just takes on a life of its own while I’m writing it. And it may end up being some kind of weird historical romance, pulp fiction, mashup thing. I don’t know. So, number one, I’m going to write me a novel.

Step number two, establish your own realistic expectations. I read a really great book, oh, just a couple months ago. It’s called The Best Yes by Lysa TerKeurst, and in it, she talks about how to say no graciously, how to declutter your life, which I desperately needed, but she also talks about making sure that the goals you’re setting are realistic. One of my favorite quotes from the book says, “Unrealistic expectations become unmet expectations.” And this has been a particular problem for me in the past, but I always say my goal is to write a novel and I always have it in my head that somehow all of this magical extra time will be granted to me. I don’t know when I expect this magical time to appear. I just kind of expect it will show up like when you’re a little kid and you’re playing on a summer evening outside, and the evening just seems to last forever.

I keep thinking that that scope of time will somehow return to me, which would be awesome, but not super realistic. I’m an adult now and things are more measured. And so my goals need to be more measured, more realistic. And so when I say, I want to write a novel, I have to seriously consider is that realistic? Maybe not. Maybe it would be more realistic for me to write a series of poems. Maybe it would be more realistic for me to write a short story, just write one really good short story, and be proud of that. And so there’s a little bit of discernment that needs to happen here. When you’re deciding on your project, think about the limitations that are around you, and don’t let that defeat you. There are plenty of famous writers who work day jobs, and yet were strategic enough in their goal setting and in their use of their time that they were able to produce massively successful literary works.

So establishing my own realistic expectations in this sense means that if I’m really passionate about writing a novel, if I don’t want to do poetry, if I don’t want to write a short story, I want to write a novel. I need to make sure that my own expectations for myself are realistic. I have to remind myself that I’m probably not going to have a finished novel in the next six months. I have to be realistic and set my own expectations so that I don’t end up dismayed or disappointed. I need to tell myself, “Well, Sarah, given the reality of your schedule, you can write a novel, but it might take you a lot longer than you thought and it’s going to take a lot of hard work.” I think it’s good that we’re realistic and honest with ourselves and that we prepare ourselves for the amount of work that we’re taking on.

I actually work at a website design and development firm, and I work a lot with clients. In working with clients, it’s extremely important that we set expectations. If the expectation we set for our clients is that the website we’re building for them will have, Oh, it will be huge. And it’ll have all these bells and whistles and it will change their lives forever. And their return on investments will be 900%. We’re not setting a very realistic expectation. When we deliver a website that does not deliver 900000000% return on investment, or what have you, then they will inevitably be upset or disappointed or pretty angry. It’s really important that you set yourself up with realistic expectations to save yourself from disheartenment and despair that can sometimes come along when we expect too much of ourselves.

Number three, translate your realistic expectations into realistic goals. So I’ve realized that I want to write a novel and I’ve tempered my expectations. So I know that within six months I will probably not have a published novel and it will in fact, probably take me a couple of years and I’ve made my peace with that. I’m going to transform those realistic expectations into realistic goals. The key here is to look for the limiting factors. And for me, that factor is my schedule.

You probably know that I am all about work, life and writing balance, and that I’m really passionate about finding a way to make sure those three facets of life can live in harmony. In order to do that I look at my schedule a lot. I am very dedicated to my schedule, and it’s really good to take a look at how much free time you actually have available and if it’s not a whole lot to think about what your priorities are and if there’s any sacrifices that can be made. So for instance, if I am willing to give up the women’s group that I meet with in the mornings, then I will have probably about an hour and a half every morning in which I can work on my novel. And I have a chunk of time after dinner that I usually spend binge watching Netflix because you come home and you’re exhausted and don’t want to do anything, but if I really tried for it and make it a part of my goal, I want to see if I can make that happen.

I realize I have two chunks of time during the day during which I can write and being very realistic, I’m not going to shoot for 10,000 words a day obviously. The goal here is to set something realistic. And by that, I mean, don’t aim too low, but if you need to aim low that’s okay. So for myself, realistically, I might write 300 words a day, four nights a week, or I might write 100 words a day, seven days a week, and I need to be realistic with myself and know that is going to be a long time before I finish this novel. So whatever you’re setting, make sure it’s realistic.

A little bit of a spoiler alert here. This podcast will include sort of a book of the week feature at the end of each podcast, but I want to talk about the book just real quick right now, because it has to do with setting realistic writing goals. The book this week is Stephen King’s fabulous On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, and in it, he talks at length about setting writing goals and sticking to them. I want to share with you Stephen King’s daily writing goal. He says, “By the time you step into your writing space and close the door, you should have settled on a daily writing goal. As with physical exercise, it would be best to set this goal low at first to avoid discouragement. I suggest 1,000 words a day, and because I’m feeling magnanimous, I’ll also suggest that you can take one day a week off at least to begin with. No more or you’ll lose the urgency and immediacy of your story if you do. With that goal set, resolve to yourself that the door stays closed until that goal is met.”

This book is as I will later discuss, one of my absolute favorite books on writing. However, that particular passage has always been troublesome to me because a lot of us, myself included, don’t have the luxury of 1,000 words a day. A lot of us don’t have the luxury of writing full time. When we talk about setting realistic goals, I want you to remember that. I don’t want you to be disheartened with the knowledge that other people may be able to write 1,000 words a day. All right. So my personal goal is to write 100 words a day, and I think I can do that. And you know what? If I start working and I find that it’s very easy for me, I love to challenge myself and in fact, I maybe love it too much, but I will up that to maybe 150 or 200 or 500 words a day. You can do that too. Just find what you’re comfortable producing on a daily basis.

Number four, stick to your goal. I almost feel like I could have an entire podcast episode on how to stick to your goals, but for now, I just want to make a couple points and give a couple pointers that will hopefully be helpful. The number one most important thing you can do when establishing a goal, and this is going to sound a little silly, but it is totally true, is to pick up a pencil or a pen or a Sharpie or a crayon or some kind of writing implement, get a piece of paper or a post to note or a chalkboard, I don’t really care. You get the point. Write down your goal. I don’t mean to get all new age-y or whatever, but there is something very powerful about writing down your goal by hand. I don’t know what that is, but I’ve found that when I write myself a reminder email, I just end up ignoring it or deleting it. When I add a reminder or a goal to one of the lists on my phone, it ends up getting lost in the 67,000 other items on my to do list. And so I write it down and I keep it in a place where I write in my office at my desk in full vision, so that when I sit down, I can look at my goal every day.

I really believe that there’s some truth to the out of sight, out of mind, philosophy, but if it’s there staring at you in the face, and if you wrote it down, if you applied your hand to the pencil and the pencil to the paper, that’s your handwriting. That is a commitment to yourself, and you need to stay true to that. I’d also encourage you to take a look at your schedule. I know I mentioned this a little bit earlier, but this time I want you, instead of just looking at your schedule to be active on it. And what I mean by that is schedule out chunks of time that you want to dedicate yourself to meeting your goals.

I’ve done this. And to be very honest with you, sometimes it works, but sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes I look at my schedule and my little alarm goes off on my phone and it says like, “Oh, hey. Writing in five minutes.” And I’m like, “Yay.” And I run to my computer and I get ready to write. And then I write and it’s wonderful, but other times I’m like, “Oh, writing in five minutes, I’m just going to watch one more episode of Arrow or Agents of Shield.” I don’t know what you like, Project Runway? And that’s what that little reminder on that little slip of paper is for, but give it a try. Schedule in time for writing, commit to yourself that you’re going to try and be faithful to it. I know it’s hard and I know that when you come home from work, you’re tired, but sometimes, maybe that little calendar reminder will encourage you to start writing.

Another way to stick to your goal is to join a writer’s group. I run a writer’s group for young women downtown. One of the reasons that I formed it was I wanted a way to keep myself accountable to my goals. For whatever reason, I can be very, very lax on myself, but if I know that someone else is expecting something of me, I will try a million times harder to get it done. I don’t know if that’s because I am innately a people pleaser, or if I have a lot of pride or I don’t know, I’m not a psychoanalyst, but for me, accountability works. If I tell somebody that I’m going to do something, then I do it and there’s just absolutely no question. I would encourage you wherever you live, start looking for a writer’s group to belong to.

Sometimes they’re difficult to find. Not every group will have the mix of people that you’re looking for or not every group will understand the genre that you’re writing in. There are also communities of encouragement online. I would encourage you to find one of those if you’re a little bit of an introvert like me, but either way, find someone to hold you accountable. Whether it’s a spouse, a friend, a writing group, a coworker, someone you trust. Share your goal with them and ask them to help you stay accountable to that goal.

All right, number four kind of leads into number five. Number five is to move beyond your goal and form a writing habit. Some of the most prolific and successful writers got that way because they stuck to a daily writing habit. It just became part of their lives. It was as natural as eating a meal or going to work. When something becomes natural like that, it becomes part of who you are. And that’s really, I think, at least for me, that’s really where I want to be. That’s really my goal is to internalize my goal is that kind of meta maybe, but I want to become that. How do we form a habit?

Honestly, it’s just repetition. I think that this is a sticking point for a lot of creatives like myself. We tend to be a little spontaneous, a little less than scheduled. There’s no guarantee that if you set your writing time from 5:00 to 6:30 in the morning, that your muse is going to show up and inspire you to write. A lot of people only write when they feel that they are inspired or that their muse has moved them to write. That is not necessarily in conducive to a writing habit, but I think that you’ll need to get used to not only writing when you feel inspired, but writing when you feel uninspired. I want you to be able to write every day and not everything you write will be good and that’s okay. It’s the habit that matters. It’s the internalization of the title writer into your identity, into your routine, into your daily life that matters.

Maybe it’s because I am nosy, but I am always really interested in what other people are doing. There’s a really cool article on Flavorwire and I believe it was July, 2011, so it’s kind of old, but the information is evergreen. It details the writing habits of several famous American authors. If you’d like to read the article in its entirety, I would highly encourage that. You’ll find it linked in the show notes on my website for this episode, but I’m going to go through a couple authors starting with Ernest Hemingway, quoting from the article.

“Hemingway famously said that he wrote 500 words a day, mostly in the mornings to avoid the heat. Though, a prolific writer, he also knew when to stop. In a letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1934, he wrote, ‘I write one piece of masterpiece to 91 pages of crap. I tried to put the crap in the waste basket.'” I feel compelled to tell you that it does not say crap. It says something else, but I’m trying to keep this family friendly.

Another is William Faulkner who drank a lot of whiskey when he was writing. “It all started,” says the article, “when he met Sherwood Anderson, when they were both living in new Orleans. Faulkner explained, we’d meet in the evenings and we’d go to a drinking place and we’d sit around until one or two o’clock drinking. And still me listening and him talking. Then in the morning, he would be in seclusion working. And the next time I’d see him the same thing. We would spend the afternoon and evening together. And the next morning he’d be working. And I thought then if that was the life it took to be a writer then that was the life for me.”

This next one is from one of my favorite writers and also someone who I think struggled very deeply with the work life writing balance. This is from her book, The Habit of Being. Flannery O’Connor explains, “I write only about two hours every day because that’s all the energy I have, but I don’t let anything interfere with those two hours at the same time and the same place.” Since Flannery O’Connor had lupus, any activity was incredibly taxing for her, especially during the end of her life. So she would sit facing the blank surface of her wooden dresser, which provided no distractions.

Finally, Tom Wolf. Tom Wolf said, “I use a typewriter and I set myself a quota, 10 pages a day, triple spaced, which means about 1,800 words. If I can finish that in three hours, then I’m through for the day. I just close up the lunchbox and go home. That’s the way I think of it. Anyway, if it takes me 12 hours, then that’s too bad, but I’ve got to do it.” So, there is a truly broad spectrum, even among some of the greatest and most successful American authors.

At the end of the day, it’s important to know your project, to establish realistic expectations for yourself, to translate those realistic expectations into realistic goals, to stick to those goals and to move beyond those goals into a habit. I mentioned earlier that I’m going to be challenging myself to read a book a week and this week in order to pump myself up for podcasting, I took another stroll through Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. I want to address right away the very first thing that anybody says when they see me reading this book and that often I think that readers find themselves thinking because Stephen King himself addresses it very early on in the book.

There is a perception that may or may not be true that Stephen King is a hack. And I think that a lot of genre writers tend to face this problem. I think that with the way that the world of criticism has sussed out, that it’s kind of hard to be taken seriously if you’re not writing the great American novel, if you’re not writing something hyper-realistic. But I really respect any writer who has the passion and the drive to churn out novel after novel of what they actually want to write and not what is being prescribed to them by critics. I say that as not only someone who writes and loves genre literature, but as someone who also just deeply loves literature. Just because somebody writes about vampires or a rabid dog or creepy little children in a cemetery doesn’t mean that they don’t have anything worthwhile to say. It doesn’t mean that they still can’t explore truth and beauty and true human emotion and meaning, but that’s kind of neither here nor there.

What I want to tell you is that you should probably definitely read this book. I consider this a staple for all writers. He not only goes through his own story. He is extremely encouraging and he has a very uplifting message for anyone who wants to write. And in addition to that, he gives great advice on vocabulary, truth-telling, world-building plotting, getting an agent, all stuff that we’ll be talking about in coming podcasts, but really read this book. It will give you an excellent foundation. He also has a really great passage about why it’s imperative to write every day.

From Stephen King’s On Writing: “If I don’t write every day, the characters begin to go stale in my mind. They begin to seem like characters instead of real people. The tale’s narrative cutting edge starts to rust and I begin to lose my hold on the story’s plot and pace. Worst of all, the excitement of spinning something new begins to fade. The work starts to feel like work and for most writers, that’s the smooch of death. Writing is at its best, always, always, always when it is a kind of inspired play for the writer. I can write and code if I have to, but I like it better just when it’s fresh and almost too hot to handle.”

I have a very terrible habit of writing in all of the books I read. And within this book, there is not one page that does not have something underlined or something annotated in the margins. It has really been to me, not only a great encouragement, but a great comfort. I keep this book next to my written out goal in my writing office and I make sure that it’s never out of sight so that it’s never out of mind.

Today’s Q&A comes from someone who did not want their name to be shared. And so this is from anonymous in anonymous town USA. This person asks, “Help. I’m constantly distracted by the internet. What do I do?” So I have an answer for you, but it’s not something that you’re going to want to hear. What I need you to do is put your phone into airplane mode or better yet, chuck it out of the room, disconnect your computer from the internet. Yes. I know that the internet is a valuable source of research and information and dictionaries and thesauruses and all that, but you can look all of that stuff up later and implement it in your second draft. Unplug yourself from the internet and write. I promise without that constant distraction itching at the back of your mind, your production will be smoother. You’ll be more attentive, more engaged in your own work, which will help you create a more engaging work for your readers.

Remember, if you would like to submit a question, I would absolutely love to answer it. It can be about writing or other things. I would absolutely love to answer it. Simply go to sarahwerner.com to my contact page, or you can send an email to hello@sarahwerner.com. Either way I’ll get your note and read your question over the air in attempt to answer it. I would also encourage you to visit the show notes for this podcast, episode two, you’ll find it on my website under the Write Now podcast. And at the very bottom, there should be a comment section. If you’d like to share with me your writing goals, I would absolutely love to read them and to help hold you accountable just as you are helping to hold me accountable. Finally, I would like to thank you for listening. This podcast is made possible by people like you.

If you find my content valuable or even just entertaining, I do have a Patreon page set up and it will be linked in the show notes. If you would like to help donate to this podcast that I do produce on my own time and dime, it would be greatly appreciated. I have special thanks today to a couple people. First, to my good friend, Peder Aadahl, who encouraged me to start podcasting. I’d like to thank my husband, Tim, for very graciously getting out of the house today so that I could record. I’d like to thank once again two people who will probably never hear me thank them, Daniel J. Lewis from the audacitytopodcast.com and Cliff Ravenscraft from the podcast answer man.com. If you are looking into starting your own podcast, these two gentlemen have excellent resources and they’re free and they’re wonderful. I learned everything from them.

Thank you once again, for tuning in to the Write Now podcast, the podcast that helps aspiring writers to find the time, energy and courage you need to pursue your passion and to write every day. I am Sarah Werner, and I think you’re awesome.

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