My Writing Goals for 2024
An admittedly rough draft.
When I set my goals for 2023, I decided to keep them relatively modest.
2022 - A Year in Review and a Look Ahead to 2023
[AUTHOR’S NOTE: Although I don’t typically talk about my writing production on Substack (I usually save that for my Wordpress blog), I thought it might give some readers an idea of how I try to monitor and improve on my productivity on a yearly basis. Hence, this year in review and a look ahead to what I will be working on here and elsewhere when it com…
For those who didn’t care to click on the link, I decided to set a few modest goals. Since I made it to 200,000 words the previous year, I decided (based on my writing data of the past several years) I could reach 200,000 words again. Also based on my past data, I decided I could make my daily writing goals for at least 75 percent of all the days in 2023. As a quick reminder, my daily quota for writing is at least 500 words written per day or at least 30 minutes per day spent revising past work or planning new work.
On top of those pledges, I also had some other goals. I wanted to get my second book, The Yank Striker: A Footballer’s Beginning published. I wanted to have the rough draft of its sequel, The Yank Striker 2 (working title) finished by the end of the year or sooner. Finally, I wanted to grow my Substack page.
So, how did I do on each of those goals? Let’s see.
200,000 words written in 2023: As of the end of last week, I was at 213,066 words for 2023. With the words I’ve written this week (including this post), I am
pretty confident100 percent stone cold solid lock certain I will exceed my 2022 word count of 214,385. I might get to 215,000, but we’ll have to see at the end of this week whether I will or not.Meeting my daily writing quota at least 75 percent of the time: Even if I didn’t write a single word this week, I’d be there or above the mark.
Publishing The Yank Striker: A Footballer’s Beginning: Yup, done.
Getting the rough draft of The Yank Striker 2 finished: Well, I’m somewhere between one-third to one-half done, so there’s that.
Growing my Substack page: Well, I have more subscribers now than I did at the start of the year, so that’s a positive.
And as for this year, for 2024? I might alter these as the year goes on, but I think the following goals will be a good start.
I want to write at least 200,000 words this year and meet my daily quota at least 75 percent of the time. So, these will be my quotas for this year (and I think for the subsequent years to come).
My preference would be to publish The Yank Striker 2 by this summer. However, if I manage to get the rough draft finished by the year’s end, I’ll consider it a win. I prefer to keep positive, however.
I want to write more poetry this year. In fact, it would be great if I managed to get some of my poetry published in some journals, or perhaps in a chapbook format. Hopefully, my Poetry Nights will produce some more material for this project.
That’s it for now. I’ll upload another post if I alter or add other goals for 2024.
Writers keep writing and everyone keep safe.