For the last two weeks of 2011, I ran a daily series called Writing Goals: 2012. Here is one more opportunity for you to reflect on who you are as a writer, where you want your writing to take you personally and professionally, and set specific goals to help get you there. There are ten steps in this process. Here they are:

Part 1: Looking Back

Part 2: Assessing Where You Are

Part 3: Where Do You Want To Go As A Writer

Part 4: Practical Matters

Part 5: Going Public

Part 6: Schedule

Part 7: Time Management

Part 8: First Draft

Part 9: The Only Way Out Is Through

Part 10: Trust The Process

The basic premise of the process is this: You are much more likely to make progress as a writer if you think about, then formalize a list of goals than if you don’t. So consider giving this or any other approach you find to say to the Universe, “This is what I hope to accomplish in 2012.”

We pick up from last week with our year-end attempt to help GITS readers set and achieve their writing goals for 2012. To revisit the process of self-reflection from last week, here are the links:

Part 1: Looking Back

Part 2: Assessing Where You Are

Part 3: Where Do You Want To Go As A Writer

Part 4: Practical Matters

Part 5: Going Public

This week we shift the focus to a more pragmatic part of the discussion, considering a variety of tips about how to manage time and projects more efficiently. Here is what we have thus far:

Part 6: Schedule

Part 7: Time Management

Part 8: First Draft

Part 9: The Only Way Out Is Through

Today: Trust The Process

“Trust the process.”

This is probably my favorite writing mantra. It’s both practical and spiritual, which pretty sums up my experience of the act of writing.

There is prep-writing (brainstorming, research, generating plot elements, developing characters, story structure, scene breakdowns, outline), then there is page-writing (type FADE IN and continue writing until you type FADE OUT). Those two components represent the practical part of the process, but out of that ‘grunt work,’ a more spiritual aspect emerges: suddenly, you hear a character say something to you, or a character may refuse to act the way you planned, or a scene sequence you worked out in advance implodes once you start writing it, or a whole other way of approaching a subplot may leap to mind.

Whatever happens at every step of the way, a writer must learn to trust the process.

For some writers and some stories, the process can be neat and straightforward. For others, the process can be confounding and circuitous.

Every writer is different. Every story is different. Every process is different.

The writer must learn to accept that and trust that they are where they are for some reason.

M. Night Shyamalan supposedly wrote five drafts of The Sixth Sense until he had this startling realization: the Protagonist, Malcom Crowe (Bruce Willis), was dead.

J.R.R. Tolkien finished the first chapter of what would become “The Lord of the Rings” in February, 1938, then didn’t turn in the final manuscript until 1950. On two occasions, after writing hundreds of pages, Tolkien went back to page one and started all over. What if Tolkien had not trusted his creative process? We might never have known one of the world’s most remarkable pieces of literature.

“Trust the process.”

I hit upon that phrase when I was teaching one of my online screenwriting courses in response to a student who was seemingly stuck in their story. A year or so later, I stumbled onto this book, “Trust the Process: An Artist’s Guide to Letting Go”. It’s an excellent read, one I highly recommend, and it raises an interesting point about trust, that second part “letting go.”

Letting go of what?

Often what happens when we get ‘stuck’ in our writing, it’s not so much about the story, it’s about what we bring to the writing process — expectations, plans, fears, doubts. Any time we step out of the story, our active engagement in the writing process, we run the risk of losing ourselves in the day-to-day world as well as our hopes and dreams. For example, we may get caught up in seeing the story as a bridge from our life today to our imagined life in Hollywood as a working screenwriter. To carry that weight of ‘responsibility’ into a writing session, that attachment, can easily encumber our actual writing — and soon we’re stuck, not because of the story, but what we are bringing to the writing.

Trust the process / let go — all very Zen, yes? I guess. It also suggests that we look at the Writer in relation to Story not as an “I – It” relationship, but an “I – You” dynamic, something we explored here.

Trust the process.

Try tacking that mantra up onto the wall where you write.

And then believe it.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this 10-part series.

Good luck with your writing goals in 2012!

We pick up from last week with our year-end attempt to help GITS readers set and achieve their writing goals for 2012. To revisit the process of self-reflection from last week, here are the links:

Part 1: Looking Back

Part 2: Assessing Where You Are

Part 3: Where Do You Want To Go As A Writer

Part 4: Practical Matters

Part 5: Going Public

This week we shift the focus to a more pragmatic part of the discussion, considering a variety of tips about how to manage time and projects more efficiently. Here is what we have thus far:

Part 6: Schedule

Part 7: Time Management

Part 8: First Draft

Today: The Only Way Out Is Through

Imagine the process of writing a story as being a journey. Perhaps as you embark on your adventure, you have a map — an outline or beat sheet. Or maybe you don’t, plunging into your story in order to find it along the way. In either case, it’s almost certain that you will reach points in the writing process where you will feel lost. The plot isn’t working like you thought it would. Your characters feel remote and confusing. Your scenes don’t seem to be working. Your map or instincts become a labyrinth. Basically you are left to ponder, “What the hell was I thinking?”

That’s when you are tempted to give up.

Don’t. Giving up doesn’t get you out, rather it only allows you to avoid story — or so you think. It still exists. And by quitting, you create a shadow, your story as unfulfilled potential looming over you like a ghost.

No, the only way out is through.

You have to push yourself through your feelings of doubt. Push yourself through the ambiguities of your plot. Push yourself through the hard work of pounding out pages.

Rather than quitting, take the opposite approach: Go deeper into your story. To paraphrase “The X-Files,” the truth is in there!

If you go through the process, you will find your way out.

Every journey has its twists and turns. You may not be able to see where you’re heading around the next turn, but the fact is there is a path.

And the only way out is through.

This is one of the two most profound and powerful writing mantras I know. The other one I will reveal tomorrow in the final post in this series.

We pick up from last week with our year-end attempt to help GITS readers set and achieve their writing goals for 2012. To revisit the process of self-reflection from last week, here are the links:

Part 1: Looking Back

Part 2: Assessing Where You Are

Part 3: Where Do You Want To Go As A Writer

Part 4: Practical Matters

Part 5: Going Public

This week we shift the focus to a more pragmatic part of the discussion, considering a variety of tips about how to manage time and projects more efficiently. Here is what we have thus far:

Part 6: Schedule

Part 7: Time Management

Today: First Draft

This is short, but sweet. When you write a first draft, there is only one thing that matters:

GET THE DAMN THING DONE!!!

More script projects crash and burn because somewhere along the line after typing FADE IN, writers get frazzled and frustrated, disgusted and depressed, peeved and pessimistic, and simply stop writing and never finish the first draft.

If you start a script…

And you’re just not feeling it…

The plot is a major struggle…

The characters seem off…

The dialogue isn’t flowing…

The whole script conjures up the odor of zoo dust…

It doesn’t matter. None of that matters. The only thing that does is to finish the first draft! Just get the damn thing done!

I guarantee you no matter how awful you think it is, the actual process of getting to the end of the first draft will do the following:

* Help you understand your story better.

* Surface story problems enabling you to address them.

* Put you that much closer to finishing the script.

* Get you past a huge psychological obstacle of finishing the first draft.

Perhaps the most important thing: After you finish a first draft, you are no longer writing, you are rewriting. You are editing. There’s not a writer I know about or have interviewed who doesn’t prefer rewriting and editing to writing.

So if there is one writing mantra above all others I implore you to take to heart in 2012, it’s this one. No matter how hard it is for you to drag what you think may be a wretched assemblage of stinking scenes and putrid pages across the finish line known as FADE OUT… do it!

Everything looks different once you have a first draft in hand.

Everything is different once you have a first draft in hand.

Just get the damn thing done!

What are your thoughts about first drafts? What keeps you from finishing them? How important is it to you to get done with a first draft?

Tomorrow: The only way out is through.

UPDATE: In Comments, Marc and Wolf took exception with the idea that rewriting is easier than the first draft or that writers prefer rewriting to the first draft. I confess to a bit of hyperbole in my post, but in the service of speaking to the many, many aspiring and first-time writers who seem to get stymied time and again by the first draft, simply never making it to the end. You would be amazed how often I get emails or work with writers who are ‘afflicted’ by this particular issue. The simple fact is you can not write a final draft unless you write a first draft. Hence the zeal with which I wrote the OP.

There’s also this: I am speaking from the perspective of almost all the working writers I know, read about or have interviewed who crack the story in prep. I include myself in this group. Thus the first draft generally closely approximates the final draft. Will it need tightening? Surely. A good bit of editing? Yes. But not a Rewrite [R], rather a rewrite [r].

So if I removed the word “rewrite” from the OP and said instead, “There’s not a writer I know about or have interviewed who doesn’t prefer editing to writing,” that is a more accurate sense of what I meant to say.

By the way, cracking the story before typing FADE IN is often directly connected to the writer finishing a first draft or not. If you know the story before you commence the page-writing part of the process, you exponentially increase the chances of you getting the damn thing [first draft] done. If not, you reduce the odds in your favor. Moreover by doing the hard work of figuring out the story in prep, there’s an awfully good chance you will turn a future Rewrite [R] into a rewrite [r], and speed your way into the editing process.

We pick up from last week with our year-end attempt to help GITS readers set and achieve their writing goals for 2012. To revisit the process of self-reflection from last week, here are the links:

Part 1: Looking Back

Part 2: Assessing Where You Are

Part 3: Where Do You Want To Go As A Writer

Part 4: Practical Matters

Part 5: Going Public

This week we shift the focus to a more pragmatic part of the discussion, considering a variety of tips about how to manage time and projects more efficiently. Here is what we have thus far:

Part 6: Schedule

Today: Time Management

If there is a consistent refrain I hear about the problem with writing — and one I find myself muttering as well — it’s this: “I don’t have enough time.”

The simple fact is that may be true, especially so for writers who are working on the craft as an avocation or second job. While writing may be their number one creative priority, there is the small matter of keeping the lights on and the rent or mortgage paid, so on the fiduciary front, writing by necessity must take a back seat to bringing home the bacon. Depending upon the amount of hours they have to pull to cover their work, combined with family, friend and significant other responsibilities, their desire and energy for creative writing can run into a daily buzz saw of zero time.

What can a writer do in that situation? For one thing, reassess their goals. Perhaps they have to scale back their expectations. Instead of pounding out a spec script every two months, what about a more realistic goal? Remember it’s possible to create two scripts per year by writing 1 page a day.

But for a majority of people, including even those who appear to have no apparent time to write, there is another reality: In fact, we do have time, we just aren’t using it efficiently which in effect dissipates the amount we think we have.

Let’s imagine a writer. We’ll call him Sammy Glick. He is working on a spec script. He sleeps 8 hours per night. He works at his white collar job 10 hours per day. Let’s knock off another 2 hours for eating and handling daily household related chores (e.g., paying bills, laundry, bathing the dog). That leaves 4 hours per day of what we may call ‘discretionary’ time.

But what about exercise? Free time? Watching movies? Reading scripts? Yes, Sammy needs that, too. Okay, so let’s cut away another couple of hours leaving him with a mere 2 hours to write each day.

Here’s the thing: Sammy can do amazing things in 2 hours. If he’s in first draft mode, he should be able to write a scene every hour, maybe even more [depending upon the type of scenes, of course].

I think it’s fair to suggest the issue isn’t so much about Sammy not having time, it’s Sammy managing the writing time he has. Therefore, I’d like to offer three suggestions, starting small and working my way up in scope:

* The Timer Approach: You may remember my posts about the Pomodoro technique, where a person works on something for 25-35 minutes, then takes a 5 minute break. Each work segment is called a pomodoro and I’ve found it extremely helpful when I’m doing non-’creative’ writing [e.g., blogging, lectures, email]. In fact, I can look at my daily list of tasks and break them down per how many pomodoros I think each will take. Since 35 minutes is too short, at least for me, in terms of creative writing, I use a timer and set it for an hour, ninety minutes, two hours, however long I feel the scenes / pages ahead of me require complete concentration. The key here is once you start the timer, that’s it: You write. No distractions.

* Daily Routine: Setting a specific time — the same time — every day provides perhaps the biggest bang for your buck in terms of maximizing your time writing. Why? Because you create a pattern to which you become accustomed psychologically, even physically [I know plenty of writers who say they literally feel antsy or out-of-sorts if they miss a scheduled writing session]. I don’t have any facts to support my thesis, but I am willing to bet every single cent I have made hosting this blog that writers who have a regular routine get more accomplished with their writing than those who write only when they can find the time. [Note: That is safe bet for me seeing as I haven't made one thin dime from GITS].

* Prep-Writing: This is how Sammy Glick used to write: He would do a minimal amount of research and story prep, then super excited to get started on his story, he would type FADE IN and leap into page-writing. However most of his writing sessions were frittered away staring at the monitor because he didn’t know what to write. Then Sammy became a prep-writing convert. Once he started cracking the story and putting together an extensive, detailed outline before he typed FADE IN, Sammy rarely got stumped in his writing sessions, instead he was able to jam through a first draft by making the most of his precious few hours a day to write.

Here is how I have come to think of my writing time: It’s not so much managing it as it is protecting it. When I have those hours blocked off and I shut the door to write, I fight to preserve that time.

How about you? How do you manage your time? Do you have any software programs to recommend on this front? There are even programs that will shut down access to the Internet for whatever time period you set. And since we know the word “Internet” is actually technobabble for “Distraction,” whatever advice members of the GITS community have specifically on the Web front will be greatly appreciated.

See you in Comments for your thoughts and advice.

Tomorrow: First Draft.

We pick up from last week with our year-end attempt to help GITS readers set and achieve their writing goals for 2012. To revisit the process of self-reflection from last week, here are the links:

Part 1: Looking Back

Part 2: Assessing Where You Are

Part 3: Where Do You Want To Go As A Writer

Part 4: Practical Matters

Part 5: Going Public

This week we shift the focus to a more pragmatic part of the discussion, considering a variety of tips about how to manage time and projects more efficiently. But before we dig into that, let me roll out one of my oft-repeated mantras:

“There is no right way to write.”

Some of you will have no need for any of this series of posts. Indeed some of you may have discovered that any sort of intentionality inhibits your creativity and ultimately writing output.

That said, I think it’s probably safe to say most writers benefit from setting and working toward specific writing goals. Moreover some of you may think being intentional and setting goals will hurt your writing when in fact you may discover quite the opposite is true.

Bottom line: We’re all just trying to wrangle magic. And specific to spec scripts, as noted in one of the early posts in this series, if you don’t actually write the script, you have no chance of selling it or use it to get representation. All I’m trying to do is provide some ideas to help you get done that most basic goal: Write a spec script. To that end, hopefully you will find something of value in this series of posts.

Okay, having dispensed with that caveat, we move on.

Today: Schedule

When I was writing screenplays full-time for a living, I had a routine: Mornings were for exercise and taking care of personal business. Afternoons were for writing. Nights and weekends were for research and brainstorming other projects [for more on stacking projects, go here]. In fact for the afternoon writing sessions, I had this little numeric code: 1 to 5, 5 to 7. That is I wrote from 1PM to 5PM every week day and expected to produce 5 to 7 pages each writing session. If I knocked out 7 pages by 3 or 3:30, I had the option of knocking off early, or continuing to plow ahead if I had built up a good head of steam.

That was a simple system and didn’t require much in the way of oversight other than a commitment to work every day.

Now that I have so many different types of writing [creative writing, blogging, lectures, consultation, script feedback], I have had to revise my work habits and the way I handle schedules. The key is the calendar. In fact, were I not so fastidious about using a calendar, there is no way I could manage all the writing I do.

Because one of my primary email accounts is Gmail, I use Google Calendar. For planning purposes, I break things up this way:

* Annually

* Quarterly

* Monthly

* Weekly

* Daily

I plug in a projection of how I see the year laying out. Obviously that is going to flex along the way, but I find it’s helpful to lay out markers for gigs and writing goals throughout the upcoming year.

I divide things up quarterly to help break down goals into more manageable chunks and to stack projects more effectively.

At the end of each month, I create a lay-out of what I project will need to happen over the next 30 days to manage everything.

Same thing with the weekly schedule where I get very specific with daily items that need to be handled.

Finally a daily calendar breakdown.

Three particular things about schedule:

* Open items on my calendar that need to be taken care of are GREEN. When I finish that task, I change it to BLUE. This not only helps me have a visual reference as to what I need to do, it also provides a tiny, but satisfying experience of knocking things off the list.

* Prioritizing: This has made a huge difference for me. I have always been good about making lists, but in the past I have tended to have a rather laissez faire approach to how I would work my way through the things I had to do. Because nowadays I have so many different things going on, I prioritize the items on my list, and go through them in the order of their importance.

* Do the hardest thing first: My Air Force colonel father drilled this into the core of my being, so when I prioritize writing tasks, I put the tougher ones at the head of the list.

This may sound like a hugely schematic way to write, but I look at it like an extension of my own creative writing process in that my schedule is like a story outline: It’s how I provide shape to the ‘narrative’ of my daily, weekly, monthly, and so on ‘story.’

Indeed if you are into the sequence approach to screenwriting, I look at monthly and weekly writing goal breakdowns as ‘sequences,’ parts of the larger whole.

But that’s just me. I’m really curious how you approach scheduling your writing. And especially if you have any tools or software resources you use to manage your writing projects.

So please join me in Comments to discuss your own way of dealing with schedule as it relates to your writing.

Tomorrow I thought we could have a go at time management.

To kick off that part of our collective thought process, here are five pieces of advice from Jane Friedman about finding time to write.

So after four days of looking at the Past, Present, and Practical Matters, the big day has arrived: Time to etch in virtual stone our writing goals for 2012. Oh, and one more little thing: It’s important that you go public with your goals.

Today: Going Public

Why go public?

Because if we just think about your goals, they are nothing more than illusions, hazy, half-baked phantasms in our heads, here and potentially gone like all the other zillion thoughts that spurt through our consciousness each day.

Because if you don’t formalize your writing goals, you may forget them.

Because having some sort of tangible, physical list gives you a touchstone to remind you what you need be focusing on throughout the year.

Because by proclaiming your goals to the Universe, they become real.

And the biggest reason of all: That simple act of courage — declaring your goals publicly — engenders positive energy, recalling the line by the Rev. Basil King who said, “Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.”

What then do I mean by going public?

Anything that gets the goals out of your head and into the physical universe. Such as:

* Write down your goals onto 3×5 index cards.

* Compose a letter to yourself with your goals, stick said letter in an envelope, and tack it to your desk where you can see and know it’s there when you write.

* Email your family and friends with the list of goals.

* Host a party at which you recite your goals and invite people’s moral and emotional support.

* Hire the Goodyear Blimp and flash your goals on it over the Rose Bowl.

Or you can simply post your writing goals for 2012 here on GITS. Just like I’m going to do now.

Scott Myers Writing Goals: 2012

As noted, I have three areas of my life and work that involve writing:

* Write stories.

* Write about Story.

* Teach writing.

Here are my writing goals next year for each area.

WRITE STORIES

You want proof mighty forces will come to your aid if you are bold? As I have been recounting all week, I sequestered myself last weekend for a few hours to reflect on my life as a writer and what I wanted to commit myself to in the way of writing goals for next year. Literally within days, I was contacted by a producer to finalize a deal to rewrite an independent film project. Then the next day, another producer asked me to read a script to see if I’d be interested in rewriting it. Coincidence? I think not.

On another front, I recently read a manuscript of a memoir (“Lost Sheep”) by my friend Kurt Brown about Aspen, Colorado in the 70s. It was an insane period of time in one of the highest profile resort towns in the world, everything from actress Claudine Longet being convicted of negligent homicide in the death of her boyfriend former Olympic skier “Spider” Sabich to serial killer Ted Bundy being arrested, then escaping from the Pitkin County jail to Hunter S. Thompson running for mayor on a platform that the only crime in Aspen would be the sale of bad drugs, punishable by the offending party being put in stocks (Thompson won 48.7% of the vote). It’s Jack Nicholson and The Eagles, EST guru Werner Erhard and John Denver. Think “Boogie Nights” in a ski resort. I optioned the book. This year I need to find the story and a narrative framework within which to tell it, and determine if I want to write it or pitch it as a producer.

Then there’s an original story I came up with last year, one I’ll just call Project M. It involves supernatural elements, a fascinating but little-known slice of history (although the story’s setting is contemporary), clandestine global plots, multiple layers of mysteries, compelling and conflicted characters, a unique high-concept hook, all wrapped up as an action-adventure story. Oh, it’s a trilogy. That’s right, I’m going for a franchise property. I’ve done just enough research and brainstorming to know this should make a terrific story, but now as I commit myself fully to writing it, the initial fork-in-the-road is should I develop it as a spec script or a novel.

So three projects:

1. Project A (Rewrite)

2. “Lost Sheep” (Story Prep / Write or Pitch)

3. Project M (Story Prep / Write)

WRITE ABOUT STORY

After years of research, study, teaching and blogging, I’m ready to bust loose in 2012 with some books and I’m going to do that on two fronts: self-published eBooks and pursue publication via the traditional book proposal route.

On the eBook front, I will work on two titles drawing upon content I have explored on GITS. The first is “The Business of Screenwriting,” a compilation of my best weekly TBOS columns plus some bonus content, and another one I’ll call Project H.

With the explosion in popularity of eBooks, I am intrigued by self-publishing because it feels like the same spirit as writing a spec script: create the content, put it out there, see what happens. Plus I can roll out a few titles each year and create my own library of original content.

On the traditional publishing front, I have a screenwriting theory book [my magnum opus] pretty much all lined out. For years I struggled with how I should approach the subject matter: Should it be aimed at a more academic or professional audience? This year I decided I’m going to write it the same way I approach blogging — same voice, same tone. I know from having taught in multiple online class situations as well as at UNC, the content is solid and substantive, but I want it to be approachable as well, and after working up a few chapters, I think I’ve found it the tone. So another goal: Work up a book proposal on Project S and get it out to publishers.

1. “The Business of Screenwriting” (Edit / Self-Publish)

2. Project H (Expand / Self-Publish)

3. Project S (Book Proposal)

TEACH WRITING

I have one more set of six lectures to write for the Screenwriting Master Class course “Time,” the last of the Core curriculum that explores eight essential principles of screenwriting.

I will be writing lectures for four more 1-week Craft courses including “Keys to Character Development” and “The Coen Brothers and the Craft of Storytelling,” a follow-up to the popular class I recently taught “Pixar and the Craft of Storytelling.”

Tom Benedek and I are working on a unique on-site SMC weekend seminar which we think will offer something nobody else currently does, and give us the opportunity to interface with writers live and in-person.

1. Core VIII: Time (6 lectures)

2. Four Craft courses (24 lectures)

3. Project WS (lectures / multimedia / workshop)

Finally there is GITS. I am committed to maintaining the basic approach to generating content and interacting with readers I have developed over the nearly four years I’ve been hosting the site. As always I will continue to solicit ideas and suggestions from you. And I look forward to exploring more possibilities that may emerge from the site’s partnership with the Black List. For example, expect to see a lot more interviews with top screenwriters in 2012, questions and answers I hope will speak to your creative needs and help you develop as writers.

So that’s what I aim to be writing in 2012. What if this second script project comes through? Or I get a call about another script project? Here’s how I look at writing goals: They are similar to the relationship a writer has with an outline.

An outline can be a tremendous benefit to a writer, wrangling the story and giving shape to it. But once you hit FADE IN, you have to be willing to follow the characters wherever they take you. Sometimes the characters follow the outline perfectly. Other times, they don’t. In the case of the latter, you never stifle your characters, instead you have to have the courage to set your outline aside, and go with the creative flow.

Same thing with writing goals and whatever opportunities come along. Your goals give shape to the potential narrative of your creative year. Sometimes events lay out just like you figured they would. But other times, some project pops up, a unique opportunity to write a story about which you feel passionate. In those cases, you have to be willing to veer away from the schedule for your goals — not the goals themselves, just how and when you are go about realizing them.

Speaking of schedule, going public with your writing goals does not mean your planning work is done. It will do you little good if you generate a list of goals, but don’t figure out a time frame within which to accomplish those goals. So that is where we start the next step in the process on Monday: Working up a schedule. Following that on Tuesday through Friday, we will explore time saving and project management tips, mine and hopefully yours, to help facilitate reaching our writing goals next year.

For now, those of you who feel emboldened, I’ll see you in Comments and look forward to reading about your writing projects in 2012. And for those of you who want to keep that information to yourself, that’s completely fine. Just be sure to go public, even if it’s formalizing a list of writing goals on a 3×5 index card.

See you in Comments!

In Part 1, we looked back at the Past, what we had accomplished as writers in 2011.

In Part 2, we considered the Present, assessing where we are now.

And in Part 3, we looked at the Future, visualizing where we’d like our writing to take us.

When trying to lock down writing goals, considering all those permutations is necessary, well and good.

However there is this little thing that impacts our plans. You know it, don’t you? That little thing known as Life?

It’s great to generate a list of things we want to accomplish, but if we don’t take into account the realities of our day to day, week to week, month to month existence, the practical matters of Life, then that set of goals becomes… unreachable. And if unreachable, it becomes… dispiriting. And if dispiriting… over time all our story ideas get dispatched to the dead-end land of dust and tumbleweeds… and our writing dreams wither and die.

To avoid that fate, you’ve got to be realistic.

Today: Practical Matters

It’s important to have goals, but you have to be S.M.A.R.T. about it. Once again: Smart, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely.

Aim high. But deal with reality.

You have a job. Maybe you’ve got a second job. Or you’re in school.

You have friends. You have family. Maybe a spouse or a lover.

In other words, Responsibilities. You have them. I have them. And we can’t ignore them when coming up with a plan to reach our writing goals. Otherwise it’s not really a plan, is it, but rather nothing more than a wish list.

As I’ve done for the past three days, let me share my own experience of this writing goals process.

Over the weekend as I sat down with myself, I delved into the mess of things I do. In fact I wrote down a list of where my hours in the week go.

First there is Screenwriting Master Class, the online venture I launched with Tom Benedek in January this year. Although the amount of time I’ve devoted to SMC these last 12 months has varied from week to week, it has been a full-time job, easily 40 hours per week. That’s to be expected with a start-up company and I was prepared for that.

Next there is my gig teaching at UNC, only one course per semester, but since I take my work seriously, from the end of August through May that’s probably 15 hours per week.

Then my creative writing. As noted previously, that took a back seat in 2011, but I’ve continued to research and develop a couple of projects this year.

There is GITS. I’ll let you take a guess how many hours per week I spend managing this site. The number is somewhere between Ridiculous and Crazy.

There is email related to SMC, UNC, and GITS. Per the latter, it’s amazing how many writers send notes to me, everything from links to articles they think would be of interest to blog readers to success stories about their writing or filmmaking they want to share with me to requests from various entities to promote their products [which I almost invariably turn down] to the majority of items in my inbox — questions from writers related to pursuing their screenwriting dreams. I do my best to manage those communications, but it can get more than a bit overwhelming. [Blanket apology to any of you who emailed me this year and I failed to respond. I hope to go back through all my 'starred' items before 12/31 and take care of those].

Then there’s my wife and my sons who are a singular priority in my life.

Finally my time for me: Sports (soccer, UVA, Mets), exercise, reading, reflection, spiritual life.

All that puts me smack dab in the middle of what I’m sure each and every one of you can understand: How to balance it all.

The reality is unless you are single, have zero interest in a social life, live like a monk so don’t require much in the way of income, and can afford to write 20 hours per day, you have to figure out a way to handle the requirements of your life and make progress as a writer. Which means whatever writing goals you choose for 2012, they have to be realistic. Be honest with yourself. What of these things can I reasonably expect to accomplish next year?

One big note to remember: It’s not just about writing a screenplay, it’s about becoming a screenwriter. The idea that you would write a first spec script, sell it, then immediately transition into a working professional screenwriter is a flawed end game. You not only need to learn how to write screenplays, but also how to think like a screenwriter, how to work like a screenwriter, how to handle yourself like a screenwriter. All those simply take time. More than likely for you to have any realistic chance to succeed in this craft, you must give yourself more than one or two years of writing and preparation. Therefore my advice is not to think of 2012 as a year in which you will do everything, but rather one step in a process that may well take several years. The downside: Acknowledging you will be doing this for some time. The upside: You’re not laden down with an unrealistic set of goals, instead you have some achievable things on your list.

In other words — as noted above — an actual plan, not a wish list.

Let’s continue this conversation in Comments, shall we? How do you make time to write? How do you find a balance between your Writing and your Life? How many years have you given yourself to pursue your writing aspirations?

Tomorrow is the big day: To lay out our specific writing goals for 2012. In public. I will be doing that. And I invite you to do the same. By committing to something in public, we make those goal more tangible and our commitment to them more real.

Let’s do everything we can to make 2012 our best creative year yet!

In Part 1, we looked back at the Past, what we had accomplished as writers in 2011.

In Part 2, we considered the Present, assessing where we are now.

Today we direct our self-reflection toward the Future. Not 2012, but beyond. Five years from now. Ten years. Twenty. We consider the question: Where do you want to go as a writer?

Of course, we can’t know the answer. Indeed we can’t even assume we’ll make any money in the creative arts. As I wrote in this TBOS column is: “Movies don’t owe anybody a living.” Swap out any kind of writing for ‘movies,’ it’s the same thing.

But while we must keep our feet firmly planted on the ground, understanding the odds against financial success, there is no good reason why we can’t put our head in the clouds, indeed poke above them to catch a glimpse of our possible bright future. In fact, it’s important to envision what a successful career in the entertainment field would look like because when you break into the business, one of the earliest conversations you will have with your agents and/or manager is around this question: What do you want to do?

During this part of your reflection process, if your mind wanders off into images of a home in the Hollywood Hills, a new sports car, walking the red carpet at a movie premiere, Spielberg on the phone to ask you to salvage a troubled script, your Academy Award acceptance speech, I have no problem with that. We all deserve and need fantasies such as those to kick-start our motivation from time to time.

But the focus here is specific: You and your writing. Where do you want to be with it in a decade or longer? What would be the most fulfilling use of your creativity as a writer?

Again if you haven’t joined in with our collective ruminations in this series of posts yet, now is a perfect opportunity. First off, there’s zero negativity involved in this mental exercise today, rather it’s all about a positive sense of your future (i.e., fun stuff). Second whether you subscribe to the theory of creative visualization or not, having a specific image of yourself as a writer in the future at least provides you with a point of focus for your efforts in the present.

Today: Where Do You Want To Go As A Writer

Here are some questions you may ask yourself:

* Do you want just to write movies?

* Do you want just to write TV?

* Do you want to write both?

* Do you want to write and direct?

* Do you want to write and produce?

* Do you want to bounce between writing big commercial movies and character-driven indie films?

* Do you want to write screenplays and novels?

* Do you want to carve out a niche writing specific types of movies or write across multiple genres?

I’m sure you have other questions to add to the list. Whatever you ask yourself, the important thing is to project into the future and imagine where you want your writing to take you.

As part of this series, I promised to share my own process. And at this point in my life, I find this to be a really interesting question. When I lived in L.A. and wrote nearly 30 movie and TV projects in 15 years for every major studio and broadcast network, this was an easy question to answer: I wanted to continue doing what I was doing. But I have charted an unusual path during my creative adventure. In a way, my choice to leave L.A. and go work for an independent production company represents a radical departure akin to when I left Yale to take a year off in order to explore what possibilities my interest in music would generate. In the case of the latter, it led me to screenwriting. In the case of the former, I have been unsettled as to where this path is leading. But the mist may be clearing just a bit.

I don’t have a fixed sense of what that future might look like as I’m not sure there are any paradigms out there for me to follow. As indicated yesterday, I have two strong interests with my writing: To write stories and to write about Story. There is a third component which has to figure into the mix: I want to teach.

I don’t know how to explain this desire. I just have an instinct for teaching. It is as much a part of my core essence as writing is. To demonstrate how much, when I sat down with myself this weekend, I considered this question: “If I wrote a spec script and sold it for one million dollars, would I quit teaching?” I barely had to think about it. The answer was definite: No, I would not. In fact, if I was working full-time as a screenwriter again, I’d probably still maintain this blog if only to keep up an educational outlet.

Why? Part of it is, as I suggested yesterday, I believe teaching is in my DNA. But there’s another component. When Universal Pictures bought the spec script K-9 for three-quarters of a million dollars in 1987, I was a complete and total outsider to Hollywood. And ever since that very first year of transitioning into the business of screenwriting, I have felt a powerful commitment to make myself available to aspiring writers. I think a major reason for this is I always root for underdogs. Case in point, being a military brat and moving around the country as I did, I could choose any Major League Baseball team to root for. I chose the New York Mets. This is back in 1964 when they really sucked. But that’s precisely what appealed to me about them. I love underdogs. And once I understood how long the odds were against success as a writer in Hollywood, I found a brave new world of underdogs: Every writer outside the system.

I suspect at least some of you are thinking, “This guy is full of shit” or “Myers is feeding us a total line.” I get it. I mean, why would anybody in their right mind feel such a connection to and commitment on behalf of other writers?

Here is my rejoinder: GITS. Why the hell would I have started this site and written nearly 8,000 posts in the 38 months I’ve been hosting it? It sure ain’t the money as I haven’t made one thin dime from my efforts as a blogger.

The truth goes deeper. I love movies. I love screenwriting. I want to do whatever I can to help writers find their voice, tap into their passion, fuel their motivation, inform them about the ins and outs of Hollywood, prepare them for the possibility of breaking into the business, and in a perfect world engender their ability — and by ‘their,’ I mean your — to write a great script worthy of becoming a great movie.

Believe that or not… but I swear that’s the truth.

So where do I want to go as a writer?

I want to write stories. I want to write original screenplays. I want to write novels. I have multiple story concepts I want to bring to life on the page.

I want to write about Story. I want to pull together my theories about screenwriting as books. I want to publish what I think are exciting, new and distinctive ideas about how to approach crafting a story, offering a different voice to the conversation about the craft.

I want to teach writing. University? Screenwriting Master Class? GITS? All of them? Some of them? Something else? The other two aspects — writing stories and writing about Story — lay out pretty clearly in my mind. Teaching? Still a work in progress.

In any event, I have formulated a set of goals for 2012 that will move me forward on all fronts: writing stories, writing about Story, teaching writing. I’m excited by the prospect I will be doing that for next 10 years… and maybe beyond.

How about you? Do you have a clear sense of what you want to be doing in five or ten years? Or is your vision of the future an amorphous one? Stop by Comments, won’t you, and share your thoughts.

Tomorrow we focus on practical matters. Remember what we’re trying to do here is be S.M.A.R.T. about our choices when it comes to Writing Goals: 2012.

S = Smart

M = Measurable

A = Achievable

R = Realistic

T = Timely

After spending time with our head in the clouds, tomorrow we focus on keeping our feet on the ground.

See you in Comments!

This series of daily posts, starting yesterday and going through next Friday (M-F), is an experiment. This is not about resolutions which we make on December 31 and break by January 30… or sooner. This is not about wish lists and ephemeral fantasies. This is about each of us — you and me — committing ourselves to ply the craft of writing day after day, to tell stories only we can tell, and to end up with a tangible product in our hand — a completed manuscript. Then start on another story…

Writing is hard. It just is. It’s a lonely occupation, far too often we get lost along the way, we have to fight off constant Inner Voices of Negativity, and the competition is stupid insane. In the face of that I guess what I’m hoping for in this effort is to enlist the entirety of the burgeoning GITS community to create a sum greater than the parts, a spirit of I Can Do That which grows and grows, and pours out into each of our little creative cups, feeding our souls and fueling our persistence.

Hence 10 posts. First and foremost, I believe the best way to identify simple, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely writing goals is to do a thorough job of self-examination, which is what we are doing this week, buttressed by some good, old-fashioned inspiration, which is what is on the docket for next week. But there’s also this: Each day I’m here bellowing at you is an opportunity. You may not be with us on Day 1. You may not catch up to us on Day 5. Perhaps it may take you until Day 10. But make no mistake: This is a Herald’s Call. The only way you are going to become a writer is by being a writer. And the best way to be a writer is to make goals… and meet the hell out of them.

If you missed the Day 1 post, you can catch that here.

Today: Assessing Where You Are

We started yesterday by looking back on what we accomplished in 2011. That part of the process is practical, aggregating our significant events and tangible achievements in the previous twelve months. You may read the many comments from GITS readers here. Today we assess where we are as writers. This aspect of the process is more emotional, even spiritual.

Get curious about your Creative Self. Perhaps ask one or more of these questions:

* Is this where I want to be as a writer?

* Am I writing what I want to be writing?

* What do I want to write?

* What do I need to write?

* Is there a particular story I have surfaced about which I am particularly passionate?

* Has something important happened in my life this year which has shifted my writing perspective?

* Am I in touch with my Creative Self?

* What can I do to be a better writer?

As I noted previously, I am sharing my own part of this process with you and Friday I will make my own public proclamation of writing goals for 2012. In terms of assessing where I am as a writer, I sat with myself this weekend… and confirmed some interesting conclusions.

This last decade I have been on a journey. A combination of opportunity and instinct led me to leave Los Angeles in 2002, my home for 15 years, with my wife and two sons for a more hospitable place to raise a family. We wound up in Chapel Hill, an incredible community every bit as progressive in its thinking as Santa Monica with its own unique quality of life.

Along the way I made a conscious shift as a writer, away from mainstream commercial comedies, my stock-in-trade, to more intimate character-driven scripts. One of my projects, which I hoped would be the springboard for a series of other similar films, was a month away from commencement of principal photography with a terrific cast when a complicated set of events scuttled the project.

Then things happened. I started producing TV. It was what the production company for whom I worked needed. But the pull of movies and screenwriting in particular was strong. In part, that’s why I started this blog, to follow and give expression to my passion in those areas.

Also there was the teaching. When I went to Yale graduate school lo these many years ago, I had intended to become an academic. The subject matter was fascinating enough, but it was the prospect of working with students that interested me most. So when I started teaching screenwriting in my spare time a decade ago, it felt like in a way I had come home.

One of the most intriguing aspects about teaching is it forced me to really think about the craft of screenwriting. I had to organize my reflections and ideas in order to communicate them effectively to writers in my classes. What I discovered was that I had an actual approach to writing. That fueled my curiosity about the nature of Story which in turn led me to Carl Jung. My immersion in Jung’s writing has galvanized my understanding of screenwriting, opening the door to a fresh way of approaching the craft, a character-based approach to Story.

During this journey, what I have discovered about myself is I am fascinated by the act of writing a story. I am also fascinated by writing about Story. This has been an evolution for me and caused me to recalibrate my sense of who I am as a writer.

With the launch of Screenwriting Master Class last January, I gave myself over to the teaching side of my writer’s self, as noted in my previous post churning out nearly 500 pages of lectures, in effect my current take on a theory of Story combined with a practical, comprehensive approach to Prep and Page-Writing. But as I sat with myself this weekend, I realized this: I must find room in my life to write fiction. I both want and need that creative outlet in my life.

So where am I as a writer just now? I hear two calls: To write about Story and to write stories. That was the fundamental truth I faced when I sat with myself and assessed where I am as a writer. I have come to a place where I know what my writing goals will be for 2012.

How about you? Where are you as a writer? How would you assess where your Creative Self is just now? If it’s unclear, a piece of advice: Go into a room, shut the door, turn off all electronic conveyances, and ask yourself some of those questions noted above. What is your Creative Self calling you to do as a writer?

I encourage you to share your thoughts and impressions in Comments. And I put out a special invitation to those of you who are just starting on your writing adventure. We had a lot of feedback to yesterday’s post from writers who have been doing this for awhile, noting some significant events and opportunities in their lives this year. That was great to see. However we all start somewhere. Even if you have just recently discovered screenwriting or are contemplating for the first time giving expression to your creative impulses, stake that claim here today. As a bonus, I’m giving out batches of creative juju to all responders in Comments today!

Tomorrow we switch perspectives, instead of looking back at the past, then here today at the present, we extend our view toward the future… not 2012, but beyond… by asking this simple question: Where do you want to be as a writer?

See you in Comments!