Number Three!

I gave a list of my anticipated goals for 2014.  I'm not sure if I should keep 5, but I'm not really sure how I'm Mundelein rather than in Illini6.
going to narrow it down.  I will recount it here now, but know that I'm only going to cover professional type material here on this blog.  As such many of my goals will be covered in Flowers of

1.  Learn Greek - that is a must, and I've placed it above and before all else.  If I do nothing else this year, even if I lose my job, I must finally learn Greek.  What I do with this however will not be tracked here.  I'll track this in Flowers of Mundelein.

2.  Archaeology - I can see how I might drop this, however I've volunteered to "help" run a Archaeology Merit Badge clinic.  At long last I  have a legitimate reason to pursue Archaeology and someone relying on my to produce.  If I didn't commit to helping I could slid this down on the priority list again.  I'll have to see on this one.  It is a maybe.  Also, I think this will probably be covered in Flowers.

3.  Writing - this belongs squarely in this blog and I'll come back to this one.

4.  New Job - I can't really control if I need this or not, but if I do it will certainly move very high up the priority list.  At this point I may have to keep it very high anyway for piece of mind.  I may track that here, as it is professional, but I may not.

5.  Commissioner - This is not really a goal, but a general catch-all for my Scouting function.  It is personal and will be covered in Flowers, but it is also a commitment I made to others and they are relying on me.  I'm going to set goals for others, so I had better keep up my end.

Let's go back and look at number three.  I want to keep a couple of rule sets in mind:

.HEINLEIN'S RULES FOR WRITING
1. You must write.
2. You must finish what you write.
3. You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.
4. You must put the work on the market.
5. You must keep the work on the market until it is sold.

SMART Goals are:

1. Specific – target a specific area for improvement.
2. Measurable – quantify or at least suggest an indicator of progress.
3. Achievable - state what results can realistically be achieved, given available resources.
4. Relevant – stresses the importance of choosing goals that matter.
5. Time-related – specify when the result(s) can be achieved.

Last year I used Results-oriented for #4, but what I mean is something that is really important and the results matter.

I highlighted Heinlein's rule #2 because I think it may be the one I most often break and the one that is certainly easiest for me to break.  I'm going keep that in the forefront of my mind and work on it.

With these in mind, I want to take January as Prop's Novel Finishing Month (ProNoFiNo) for Hidden Temple to the Lost Gods.  By, "finished" I mean a complete first draft with nothing in it like [put something here] or [explain something] or even [rewrite this].   This will be a adding month and not a refining month.

In March I'm going to sign up for NaNoEdMo (National Novel Editing Month).  This is like NaNoWriMo, but in this you must spend 50 hours editing.

Once I've edited Temple to a good second draft I'm going to start marketing it.  By the end of April I will have it out to at least one publisher.  I will keep putting it out until I do get it published.

GOAL:  Get Hidden Temple to the Lost Gods published by the end of the year.

STEPS:

1. ProNoFiMo in January
2. NaNoEdMo in March
3. Research publishing in April
4. Send it out to publishers starting end of April.

There you go, simple.

Oh, and Robert J. Sawyer added a sixth rule:  Start Working on Something Else.

I like this a lot and I do find this easy.  I almost always do this, and sometimes I've done it before #2, which is less good, or more ungood.  

On the other hand I might have to do this to follow Ray Bradbury's advice to write 400 words a day or Terry Pratchett's advice to write 500 words a day.  I don't know which should override the other.  This one is important, but I think actually FINISHING a novel overrides it.

Once I get that done, then maybe I can make a goal as simple as, average 400 words a day for a year.