Writing Goals: 2012 [Part 4] — Practical Matters

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!

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