{"id":404,"date":"2015-02-01T16:20:45","date_gmt":"2015-02-01T16:20:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cranswick.org.uk\/judith\/?p=404"},"modified":"2015-05-01T14:48:16","modified_gmt":"2015-05-01T14:48:16","slug":"set-your-goals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.judithcranswick.co.uk\/?p=404","title":{"rendered":"Set Your Goals."},"content":{"rendered":"

My aim is always to write a novel in a year though things never quite work out like that. During the actual writing stage, I\u2019ve always keep a record of my daily word count, but this year I started writing the latest book on January 1st<\/sup>. An excellent opportunity to get myself organised and set goals for the whole year.<\/p>\n

MAKE YOUR GOALS SMART <\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Smart\"<\/a>Adopting the SMART principle, a realistic daily word count for me is around 500 words. Allowing for life (holidays, social events etc) getting in the way as it so frequently does, I\u2019ve set myself a target of 2,500 words a week \u2013 10, 000 a month, which meant I should be able to write a first draft in 9 months which should be easily doable. True, that only gives me 3 months to redraft, get feedback and publish \u2013 a tall order, but I\u2019ll deal with that when I get there!<\/p>\n

Many of my friends write 2-3,000 words a day. That may well be possible if you have already spent weeks, even months drafting a detailed plan and much of the time-consuming research, but that\u2019s not the way I work. I know my main characters \u2013 tour manager, Fiona Mason and MI6 chief, Peter Montgomery-Jones \u2013 the country where I set the story and have some idea of its theme and where I want to end up. For me, the fun is writing to find out what happens. Yes \u2013 it means I write slowly, frequenly discarding whole passages when a better idea comes along and I need to research as I go along, but after 9 completed novels, 6 of which are published, it\u2019s the way I work best.<\/p>\n

MARKETING GOALS<\/strong><\/p>\n

Equally important are marketing goals BUT it is vital<\/strong> to decide exactly what you want to achieve. Keeping in mind that much of marketing is about promoting yourself<\/strong> \u2013 getting yourself noticed \u2013 not selling books<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Adopting the SMART principle again, time and technical prowess (or in my case, lack of it) restricts my options of what it is practical for me do.<\/p>\n

social media \u2013 <\/strong>from Twitter to Pinterest there are so many ways to networkbut it\u2019s better to do a limited number well than attempt to spread yourself too thinly. I plan to concentrate on:<\/p>\n