Are you setting writing goals? Or just getting lost in the mist of ambition?

Good evening Grinders, how did your exercise of creating a name list go? Did you find some interesting name combinations? What was the biggest surprise of the exercise? Share in the comments and let me know. Now let's talk about a topic every writer can relate to.

What is your writing goal? It is a question I frequently ask writers who are just starting out, maybe they are just thinking about starting, and I will ask it of people who have been writing for a while, and the more people I ask, the more I realize most people have the same goals, yet they go unfulfilled but why?

First let's look at what the common answers are, and know that if your answer falls in line with some of my examples, don't think that your writing goal is bad. I simply want to show you a way to get what you want, instead of you beating your head against the writing wall. I most often hear: I want to write a book. Good ambition but it is a supremely lousy goal. Some say: I want to write a good book. Again a bigger ambition than just writing a book, but again an awful goal. I hear: I want to be a best selling author. Amazing ambition, horrendous goal. Are you scratching your head yet? Read on.

My personal ambition is to be a best selling author who is afforded the ability to make a living from his writing, while teaching writers to improve their own craft and reach their goals. My personal goal is to put my ass in the chair, today, and to not get up until I write at least 1,000 words. I know this sounds like an easy distinction once you hear it, but that is the whole point. I hear maybe 1 in a 100 writers who answers the question say anything about a word goal, or even settling on writing a single chapter or even tweaking their outline. All I manage to hear is something about writing a book or series. Do you know how many of them I have talked to who actually get there? So few that it isn't worth wasting a decimal point on the statistic.

But on the flip side, the writers I hear who say: my goal is to sit down and spend an hour writing or say I am going to squeeze sometime going over what I wrote yesterday. Those writers are the ones I see most commonly accomplishing their goals. Taking small, attainable steps is the absolute key to getting things done and making it to where you want to be. You can't sit down in an afternoon and write a book, you just can't. But you can decide to sit down today and put 250 words on a page and try and make them the best 250 words you have today.

Here is my challenge to you today. Take some time and really think about what your writing ambition is? Is it publishing your memoir? Write a comedy book? Write a book on history? Write it down. Then spend some time thinking about what your writing goal is. Is it writing 250 words? Editing 3 pages? Detailing a character outline for 30 minutes? Again be sure to write it down.

Making sure that you separate your writing goal and your writing ambition is the first step of aligning your goals to make your ambitions not only attainable but make them the reality you have always wanted.

Make sure you take some time and share what you found after this exercise and post it in the comments.

Now try to put two days of writing together in a row, you'd better get after it Grinder.