October 7, 2013

Pulling It Together: ROW80 Round 4 Goals

2013 has been a blur. I published my second book and first young adult novel, and my family and I moved from Maryland to California. My goals, both personal and professional, have been all over the place and always changing this year.

Round 4 is an opportunity for me to pull it all together and head into 2014 with momentum and a sense of purpose and achievement.

But before I state my goals, I wanted to share a great post by Julie Glover. A Round of Words in 80 Days (ROW80) has brought some amazing people into my life. Julie is one of those. If you don't follow her blog, please do. She's funny, always willing to share, and a fellow word nerd.

Yesterday, Julie shared her goals along with tips for choosing them: Tips for Choosing Writing Goals. Some of her findings...

* You should include goals in multiple areas of your life.
* Goals should be SMART (her post details the acronym).
* Consider your values when determining goals.
* Keep it simple.

Then she shared some goal strategies from the book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It's a book I have not read. But based on Julie's recommendation, I ordered it and will read it this round. I've been a bit scattered this year, so now is a great time.

Thanks, Julie. Please check out her post for some inspiration.

My Round 4 ROW80 Goals

* Write 1,000 words a day Monday through Thursday through October 31. Then, I plan to join NaNoWriMo. I did NaNo last year, and I found it focused me to keep writing first in my to do list. For that challenge, I need to complete 50,000 words in the month of November.

* I will attend #ROW80 word sprints (2:00pm EST on Twitter) at least three days a week. More if I can. This supports my writing goal.

* Finish 25 books to meet my GoodReads reading goal of 100 books this year.

I'm going to keep the main goals simple. But if my reading and writing goals are met for each day:

* Perform my ROW80 sponsorship duties.
* Visit blogs and be social on Twitter and Facebook.
* Write reviews and share book news here and on Mom in Love with Fiction.
* Put Depression Cookies on Smashwords (it's ready, I'm behind).
* Get my author website up and running (in process).
* Editing.

And finally, I will exercise at least 3-4 times a week. I started to put a focus on family goal, but that is always number one and will supersede everything here. Round 4 is always a bit tricky with Thanksgiving and Christmas, but I am focused.

Whatever your goals may be, I wish you well.

And for those of you who don't know about ROW80. From the website:

A Round of Words in 80 Days is the writing challenge that knows you have a life.

We are all different and we all have different demands on our time.  Why should we all have the same goal?  The simple answer is that we shouldn’t.  If you want to be a writer, then you have to be able to roll with the punches and adapt to your changing circumstances.  If that means changing your goals when your life blows up, so be it.  ROW80 is the challenge that champions the marriage of writing and real life.

7 comments:

Juliana Haygert said...

Wow, 100 books a year? I wish I read that fast!

Good luck! :)

Shah Wharton said...

I second Juliana about reading! I love to, and I do read everyday, but the most I could reach would be around 50. Although, I rarely read through the day, unless I'm in transit (too busy), so perhaps I should st aside an hour a day to do so (um, rethinking goals already!)

Regarding Lulies post, I visited earlier - she really is awesome. And that post was no exception. :)

You have some fine goals, you've already achieved so much this year! Congrats on that and best of luck for the next few months. X

http://shahwharton.com/2013/10/row80-round-4-goals-list/

Anonymous said...

I really like how you have your main goals and then the next list of goals IF you finish the most important priorities. That's how I'm hoping to approach this next round. I tend to knock out the easiest stuff first, but then I don't get to the harder, more important items on my goals list. So flipping that around would be great.

Thanks for the shout-out, and I'll be around to cheer you on this round 4!

krystal jane said...

Alright! I'm doing NaNo, too. I also did it last year, but it didn't go so well. These sounds like great goals, and I know you can meet them. :) Good luck with everything!

Shan Jeniah Burton said...

Tia,

I love your goals. They seem like the perfect way to wrap up a year with so many changes and accomplishments.

I will see you at NaNo, and maybe some of the Twitter wordsprints, too (although they are soon after Jim leaves for work, so often Annalise needs my attention then.)

I've saved Julie's post for when I feel I have the clarity to read it...my mind seems to be in all-out creative mode, at the moment!


And I will, of course, be in your cheering section here, too! =D

Jo Michaels said...

OMG @ NaNo! I'm still trying to think up something to write on. :-/ Maybe I'll delve into that book I came up with a chapter for last year. I have so many unfinished MSes it's starting to make me a little crazy. Player, M, and Markaza are three that have good chunks written but need to be finished. To start another one seems like it might be driving nails into my head. :(

Whatever. I'll figure it out LOL! Great goals, Tia. I got those postcards yesterday along with the card. You're so frikkin' sweet!! Thank you. That made my day. Sending you my thoughts here shortly on how we can change those postcards up just a hair to make them ROCK. WRITE ON!

Anonymous said...

Great goals, Tia, good luck with them! Now I have to go check out Julie's post. :)