15 October 2002

Setting Goals and Planning A Writing Career: A Worksheet
by Leslie What
www.sff.net/people/leslie.what

Leslie What is an artist and freelance writer whose work has won awards for nonfiction, drama, and fiction, including a Nebula Award for short story. She has published numerous short stories and feature articles, a collection, a pseudonymous novel, and written commentaries for radio and documentary scripts. She teaches writing workshops at her local community college and at conferences and workshops throughout the nation.

A little over a year after my first publication in Asimov's, as I agonized over the long wait before my second story's appearance in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, writer/editor Kris Rusch said something that has stayed with me since: Being a writer is more than just one sale, one story, or even one book.

Writing is an inefficient way of attaining instant gratification. A writer practices her craft, a process that can take a lifetime. She sells her first article, story, or a book and waits and waits for the contract and then check. It might be another year or more before her work sees publication. To paraphrase writer Kate Wilhelm: get used to waiting. In this business, there's a lot of it.

The best way I've found to cope with the uncertainty of being a professional writer is to simultaneously work toward both short and long-term career goals. It's useful to periodically reevaluate these goals. Circumstances change; goals are met or discarded, sometimes replaced with others that better reflect the

During the past year, I've led several sessions addressing strategies to plan a career. During each session, I hand out a worksheet similar to the one published below. Much of what we cover in an hour reflects the goals and pitfalls unique to the participants, so look on this worksheet as a guide but not a comprehensive manual. Allow half an hour to think about the questions and fill in the blanks, up to an hour if you get together with peers (I highly recommend this approach!) to brainstorm goals and strategies for planning a writing career.

WORKSHEET

1. What are your short-term and ultimate writing goals? (Examples: I want to write for personal expression; I want to write something that someone else will pay to read; I want to write for television; I want to publish a short story in Asimov's; I want to write a novel; I want to win the National Book Award; I want to win a Nebula; I want to write a bestseller, etc.)

2. Which of the above goals are completely under your control and which goals will take the cooperation of others in order to be achieved? (Examples: goals under your control might be to write a short story, but a goal that requires cooperation of others would be for you to win a Nebula Award for a short story.)

3. Look at what you've listed as your goals. If the majority depend on others to be realized, take a moment to think up a few more goals that are entirely under your control.

4.Looking at the goals that depend on others before they can be achieved, what are some practical steps that you are already taking to support the realization of each goal? (Example: if your goal is to win National Book Award, a practical step might be to write 500 words of a novel each day.)

5. Looking at the goals that are utterly dependent upon you to be achieved, what are the practical steps that you are taking right now to support the realization of each goal? (Example: if your goal is to write a novel, a practical step is to write 500 words a day of a novel; if your goal is to publish, the practical step is to submit your work for review.)

6. Are you currently working to achieve your goals? If so, list those things that you are doing (including going over this worksheet). Is there anything else you might try? Would any of the ideas brainstormed in #5 prove useful?

7. List any external blocks that keep you from achieving your goals: (Examples of external blocks might be fighting children; a broken keyboard; working two jobs and having no time; lacking money for postage; illness that prevents you from writing.)

8. Looking at the external blocks, can you find ways to address just one of them in a way that will allow you some time and space to work toward your writing goals? (Examples: dedicate two hours a week of paid childcare that allows you to get out of the house and write at a coffee shop; switch to pen and paper; ask for a loan or get help from your writers group for postage costs; say "No" the next time a volunteer opportunity arises that will take a bite into your writing time.)

9. List any internal blocks that keep you from achieving your goals: (Examples: feeling like you have no time because you're too busy; despair from constant rejection; fear of failure; lack of confidence.)

10. Looking at the internal blocks, can you find ways to address just one of those block that will allow you some time and space to work toward your writing goals? (Examples: write affirmations; follow the strategies in Julia Cameron's book "The Artist's Way"; forego watching the evening news in order to dedicate that half hour to writing; challenge your despair to write more than you do in a week; dare to be bad; embrace failure as a part of the creative process; saying "No" the next time a volunteer opportunity arises that will take a bite into your writing time.)

11. Are there additional creative ways that you could try in support of your goals? (Example: enlist the help of a supportive friend or family member; develop a writing challenge with a friend; allow yourself a treat after the completion of any task.)

12. List ways that submitting your work for publication is helpful in achieving your goals:

13. List markets where your work has appeared:

14. List markets where you would like for your work to appear:

15. Are you submitting to the markets where you would like to be published?

16. Picture where you'd like your career to be in five years.

17. Picture where you think your career will be in three years.

18. How does your marketing plan support your writing goals? How does your published work support your writing goals? (If you limit your publications to small press venues, does that support your long-term goals? This is not a trick question. I've met a fair number of writers who are happy with the career they have established publishing in small press markets. I've also met some who feel limited and unable to break through to bigger markets. The point is to appraise what you're doing to make sure you're working toward the goals you have set for yourself.)

19. Are there some practical marketing steps you can take in the next six months that might be useful in helping you achieve your goals? (Go to a convention; send out a query letter; write and finish something; send something out; ask a friend or relative to help support you by addressing the envelopes and taking your manuscripts to the post office.)

20. List one or more practical steps you can accomplish over the next week to support your goals? (Example: print out one story and get it in the mail; research agents or editors; write two new pages of text.)

Congratulations! You've just made a working plan. Refine and re-evaluate as needed.

Copyright 2002 by Leslie What