Goals

So I was sitting around today thinking back to when I was in college and wondering how I managed to get all of those paper written in such a timely manner.  The first thing that came to mind was the acknowledgement that I didn't have four kids back then or a husband demanding my attention.  But I was in school full time, worked 60+ hours a week at my student job and still found time to get all of my assignments done.  The trick was that there were deadlines.  When I had deadlines I was forced to prioritize my time in order to get all of my work done by the day they were due.  So I've decided that this book will never get written unless I set up some very definite goals and try to stick to them.

The first goal I have decided is that I will be finished with the first draft by Christmas.  My tentative goal is 125k words (is that realistic? too long? too short? yes I know, however long it takes to tell the story, but still...).  So in order to reach this goal I have figured out that I need to write approximately 1.5 pages a day (excluding Sundays, which I take off).  One and a half pages doesn't seem too daunting when taken one day at a time.  Surely I can make up something that sounds good for such a short amount of space right?  It's only when I start thinking of doing this every day for the next 20 or so weeks that it seems to become an impossible task.  How can I possibly come up with that much stuff?  But I digress.

My next goal, upon completing the first draft, is to finish editing my manuscript by the end of March.  This may be a little optimistic, I don't know as I've never edited an entire book before, but I think I can do it in that time frame.  So once I am finished editing then I will be ready to shop around for agents/publicists or what have you starting in April.  Hopefully this will not be as time consuming as the actual writing of the book as I plan to then start on my next book in May.  I read on Kim Harrison's blog that you should always have something you're working on so that should you find a publisher that loves you and they then ask to see more of your work you actually have something to show them.

Reading full time author's blogs I feel like I may be allowing entirely too much time to write/edit/etc.. this book.  They seem to be whipping them out start to finish in 3-4 months.  However, I've been trying to console myself that most of them are doing this full time as in eight hours a day whereas I am lucky if I get one or two.  Maybe if I didn't have all these other life details distracting me I could finish my book in four weeks instead of twenty, edit in two weeks and have a deal with a publisher by Christmas.  But I don't have that kind of time at this point in my life, so I will be content with my 1-2 hours.  Of course...maybe when all of my kids are in school for 8 hours a day and I'm a world famous author, I can devote more time to my craft. ;)

What are your goals?
-Kiera
20 pages,
12.353 words and counting...