Elizabeth Drakes's Site

Fantasy Romance

Goals

Maybe I Can’t

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No, this is not a de-motivational poster.

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But he *always* pulls through.

I discuss time management a lot, and I realized something important.

I just can’t “do it all”. No matter what society tells me. No matter what society expects of me.

Sure Sheryl Sandberg wants us to “Lean In”, but I can almost guarantee she has never had to figure out how to pick up her child from dance class, get laundry done, and make sure dinner is on the table.

I guess this really hit home as I was looking at the list of writing projects I want to achieve, what I have achieved this year, and even where I have failed.

CelebrateSuccess
Except a writer is never done.

 

Successes

  • I will publish Knight of Valor this year.
  • I will publish A Knight’s Redemption within 6 months of Knight of Valor
  • I finished Leikar and Annabelle’s first draft
  • I will finish Rohan and Makayla’s first draft
  • I completed a third revision of A Knight’s Second Chance
  • I will complete a fourth revision of A Knight’s Second Chance

There will still be a few months left in the year for me to complete my other goals of:

  • Writing a third first draft novel
  • The really hard first-second draft revision of Rita (name may change) and Logan

Misses

Deadlines. They seem to go whooshing by.

DeadlinesWhoosh

 

Areas to Focus on

  • Accepting that creative endeavors are not the same as corporate finance. I am understanding a little better why we’re still waiting for Winds of Winter.
  • Accepting that I might have had unrealistic expectations for myself. Because that never happens…

All in, I am happy with the way the first half of this year went, but writing down goals put a little more stress on me than I was anticipating. Still, I think it has really helped me to focus and shown me how much I do accomplish.

Goal Update: A Bit of a Delay

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My beta reader was taking a bit longer than normal on this particular piece of work, and while I was a bit worried about it, they have a very busy life.

Yeah, that wasn’t it (though they do). Nice try on my part.

She gave me some high level feedback explaining why it was taking a bit longer.

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The look she gave me was very similar.

There will be a bit of a delay in releasing Knight of Valor.

She noted I needed to tighten my beginning. Doable within my original release date timeline.

More than that, I needed to flesh out my hero in the beginning. She thought he felt flat. I cringed a little, knowing why she was saying it and where it came from.

I wrote this book over four years ago. It was one of three books I completed when I first got back into writing, and the only one I loved the characters enough to try to salvage. The other two are now buried on my hard drive and are not fit for human eyes.

But I loved Sir Marcus. I wanted to do him justice. And through him and his story, and I pushed myself to do better as a writer. His story helped me learn a lot about finding my voice, plot and character development, and even trusting myself as a writer.

So, I’d set Knight of Valor aside for a while and work on other things, become a better writer, and tackle this story again.

During the process, I read a whole bunch of craft books. And you can see their influence on the story. One of them was how to write a romance hero…and I did Sir Marcus a lot of disservice. Granted, he overcomes the bad writing advice towards the middle on the book, but it takes him a while.

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I may be shabby from time to time, but his faith in me in strong.

At the time, they were telling romance authors that romance readers wanted alpha heroes. Don’t even bother writing anything else as it won’t sell and an agent won’t want it. So I changed him.

And he was no longer Sir Marcus.

Don’t misunderstand me. He is neither meek nor mild. He was not the “chosen one” and forced to do anything. He saw evil, and if there was a chance he could destroy that evil, he had to try. He dedicated most of his life training to do just that.

But he’s still a genuinely nice guy. The kind of person who’d come over and help you fix your roof because he heard you were having trouble without being asked. You’d share an ale afterwards, and that would be all the thanks he’d need or want.

Punch a kid or kick or dog? You don’t want him to see you do that.

Kill a village to fuel a evil spell?

Time to run. Fast.

middle-ages-knight

So, I need to let his true personality shine through the first half of the book as well as the second. No easy task, that.

Oh, and I need to fix a plot hole, tighten up my pacing, and remove a few loose ends from earlier drafts I missed. And this is before I get back the full list of revisions.

*deep breath*

I see why this is taking a bit of time to get back the beta read. I also know I sent this out for just this reason.

I am literally on my eighteenth revision of this story. Yeah. Eighteenth. That I’ve counted. The first draft and several subsequent ones (no idea how how many four, maybe five?), I didn’t number and track. I am really close to this story, and I’ve put a lot of work into it. I can sometimes lose the forest through the trees. So I need more help on this than most.

It means a lot to me. I really want to get it right.

So, this is going to be a large revision, not a small tighten-things-up late game revision.

And that’s okay. Sir Marcus deserves the best story I can give him.

Yes, it means my entire plan for the year needs to change.

Yes, it means I will not make that April publishing deadline.

Both are okay.

I want to give you the best story I can.

Delaying the release date until June or July gives me the time to make it the best that I can right now.

You deserve that, and so does Sir Marcus.

How to Not Set Goals

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Goals are important. They are how you turn dreams into reality, breaking down the ephemeral into manageable tasks.

But I set my goals a little too aggressively in March.

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Every year at the day job.

Sometimes, when you are so focused on achieving something, you can forget other obligations.

I released a book in early April. You can check it out here. It was the culmination of a lifetime goal.

I started writing my first novel when I was ten. I still remember the teal blue spiral notebook that housed that first book. I had planned to publish it before I was twelve, because I was awesome.

How I wish I had the confidence now I had then!

As excited as I was to release this book out into the wild (and nervous), it was a lot of work. On top of that, I was trying to write 1.5k words a day on a new WIP, work a demanding full time job, and be a parent and spouse.

Yeah, some things fell down.

I will never be Mom of the Year, but I could’ve been a lot a better.

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Sadly.

I will never be a perfect wife. Ever.

I will never be tracked as a “superstar” where I work. I just won’t put in enough hours, which is interesting when I think of all of the hours I’ve poured into writing novels.

But, I do need to figure out a better way to fit writing into my life. I love telling stories, though the act of writing itself is work. Hard work.

But I have this tendency to throw myself fully into whatever I’m doing when what I need is balance.

So, I’m sorting through that at the moment.

I finished a story I think of as Logan and Rita. Catchy title, I know, but it’s a fresh first draft. It’ll get better. I promise.

Now, to put my editing cape back on. And by cape I mean my comfy jammies with the most amazing LL Bean slippers. I need to figure out a pace I can manage with my children, spouse and job.

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But he still gets there.

Not sure what that is yet, but I’m not giving up on my Winter 2018 time frame for How to Love a Duchess.

 

 

 

Why Change Sucks

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Change sucks. We all know it. It’s why there are entire books , seminars, and courses in change management.

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Humans are resistant to change, and there are reasons why. I won’t go into the historical reasons why, but here in the modern day, we like knowing what to do. We like being right. We like figuring things out once and them going smoothly.

We don’t look discord. We don’t like screwing up. We don’t like failure. All of those things are significantly easier to do when you’re making changes.

My family has been going through a lot of change lately.

  • My husband started a new job last December, and it wasn’t a choice. They were re-organizing, his position was eliminated, but he fortunately was able to find a similar position in a different part of the company. Still, it’s a lot of change.
    • New bosses who aren’t as good at communicating (I keep trying to tell him that’s the norm, but he’s still skeptical).
    • A different set of expectations.
    • A lot of other new people in his new group
    • A series of people out on FMLA have made the transition even harder. Hopefully, in the next few months, things will calm down and he can learn what his new job really is.

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  • My daughter started kindergarten. You’d think that would be no big deal, but I have found the difference between private daycare and public kindergarten striking. Communication is much different.
    • At daycare, I had a daily two minute informal conversation with the teachers and always knew what was going on.
    • Now, I’m not even allowed near the classroom for security issues. I get it, but it’s still hard.
    • Things like billing, which was previously direct-pulled from my bank account, isn’t possible in public schools. I have to remember to get cash for some things AND remember to go to their online portal for a slew of others. There are no low balance messages to let me know I need to replenish my daughter’s lunch money.

 

Yeah, we’re figuring it out, but it’s still a change. A big one.

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I’m also still dealing with some medical issues, and that’s never any fun.

Balancing all of this and writing has been hard. Very hard. But I refuse to give up this time. I have put off writing so many times in my life to focus on things like my career, grad school, and kids that I’m now mammogram age. I don’t have time to put it off any longer. So yeah, that’s a change, too.

Never-Give-Up

And I can tell you, during grad school, I read my fair share of change management books. I even dusted off a few lately, but they’re about as useful to me now as they were then.

 

Do you have any tips and pointers? Any way that you’ve successfully dealt with change? Or did you just soldier through it?

 

All or Nothing

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Why is there this perception in our culture that you must do something all the way, be completely immersed in it, and be the best, or it’s not worth doing at all? It’s everything or nothing.

I’ve seen this time and again on a variety of things. Why can’t walking for 30 minutes a day, most days of the week, make everyone happy? This is what science says is great for our health. At least, so say the New England Journal of Medicine. They don’t mess around with faux science there. Why does our collective society look down on walking and instead believe we have to be doing hours of grueling cardio and intense weight lifting before we feel like we’re really excising?

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This does NOT count.

I don’t have an answer for this need for all or nothing, but I’ve seen the same thing in writing.

Stephen King, one of the preeminent writers of our time, wrote a book called On Writing. Yeah, I know, you’ve already heard about it. Maybe even read it. But in that book, he says he writes 2,000 words a day. And, I believe him.

I’ve only read a handful of his books. There’s a reason for that. I’m a coward.

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Please, no! I want to sleep again!

However, that seems to have translated into everyone out there who is writing thinking they need 2,000 words a day, too. I’ve heard it over and over again. Watched people tout this goal. Watched them try to live up to it.

Interesting, though, how few achieve it more than a few days a month. Even more interesting is how many of them stop writing altogether because they “failed” at being a writer. Not mocking them, as I’m not writing 2,000 words a day either. But then, I stopped holding myself to that criteria about 30 seconds after I finished reading Stephen King’s book.

See, he was making that word count as a full time writer. As one of the most prolific writers alive today. As a man at the top of his field.

Trying to hold myself up to that is like trying to hold a flashlight up to the sun. Yeah, I think my writing is pretty good, but there’s only one sun. I can still illuminate the darkness and make people happy without being the sun.

flashlight
I can dream.

Sort of like I can walk thirty minutes a day and still get the health benefits. No, I’m not going to look like a Hollywood celebrity doing it, but then even dedicating myself to exercise isn’t going to accomplish that.

I set my goal at 500 words a day. Yep, 500. It’s enough that words get on the page, but not so much that it’s daunting to even sit down at the computer. And here’s the thing. When I have a goal I’m pretty sure I can achieve, I’m much more likely to start it.  Sometimes, I sit down hoping to eke out 500 words, and I get a 1,000. Sometimes more. But what got my butt in the chair was the knowledge it was just 500.

 

How about you? Do you set smaller goals for yourself and then try to surpass them? Or are you more motivated by larger, grand goals that may be very challenging to reach?

The Power of Stretch Goals to Help You Fail

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Most of us who have spent any time in corporate America are familiar with SMART goals. Specific. Measurable. Achievable. Relevant. Time-Based.

 

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Or to look at them and laugh while you pour yourself a glass of wine

Nanowrimo meets all of these.

For those not familiar, Nanowrimo is in the month of November, and writers strive to write fifty-thousand words in thirty days. There are support groups to help get there. Most writers ask spouses to help out with more around the house during the month. I’ve even heard of people pre-making suppers for a month so they can focus on writing.

As you can imagine, this is a massive goal. It equates to roughly 1,700 words a day, every day, during a month that includes Thanksgiving.

For most of us, this is a HUGE stretch goal. Especially if we aren’t used to doing that many words a day.

My personal goal is five-hundred words a day. I’ve found this manageable. I sometimes write more, sometimes less, but it gets books done.

While I support every one who attempts NaNoWriMo, my fear is that it discourages more people than it helps because it is so hard to achieve.

Even if you don’t write, you get how de-motivating a goal you see as impossible is. Or at least, a goal that becomes impossible a little ways into trying to achieveit.

And science agrees with you. Here are seven reasons why unrealistic stretch goals can sometimes make you fail:

  1. You don’t consider your resources –  In the example of NaNoWriMo, you have to consider how many hours a day you actually have to write. If you’re goal is to learn a new language, same thing. How much time do you have? If we assume you sleep seven hours a night, that leaves seventeen hours. Most of us have day jobs, that include a commute. That leaves seven hours. Still, sounds like a lot. Until you remember those seven hours also include exercising, helping the kids with their homework, making dinner, showering, spending time with your spouse, etc. Maybe an hour a day is still realistic, maybe it isn’t. But it’s something to think about.

 

  1. Focused on Short Term – When you set a short term goal, you have to consider the cost of achieving the goal. Let’s say your goal is to rebuild the engine on your classic car in a month. How is your family going to respond to mac & cheese every night (my toddler excluded)? How long does it take to rebuild support from your spouse? The last thing you want is your cheering section at home to become another obstacle you face. Don’t believe me? Imagine if one of your co-workers came to you and said they were taking on a special project, and as such, you’d be expected to stay and work unpaid overtime for the next month.

 

  1. Focus Exclusively on the Goal –   If you focus exclusively on a narrow goal, you can miss other areas that are important. Like editing. Plotting. Character development. Spending a little bit of time on the front end can really help with the story and make the rewriting process a little less painful. And, if the goal is word count, how do you judge editing? Particularly when editing can involve negative word count? Yet, editing is such a vital process of writing.

 

  1. Goal Impresses Rather than Guides –  I’ve seen people like this. “I’m going to do 100 push-ups” is a great goal. But, you don’t go from spending your days playing Mario Kart to doing 100 push-ups. You need a plan with smaller goals. Whatever your ultimate goal, you’ve got some work to do before you get there.

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  1. Failing can be Excusable – When you set unrealistic goals, it’s easy to excuse not meeting them because, well, they weren’t all that achievable. They were a stretch goal, and you weren’t able to stretch that much.

 

  1. Failing becomes Accepted – Once you can be excused for not reaching the goal, failing becomes acceptable. How many people fail to ever be able to do a 5k run that started the process and are totally fine with it?

 

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All of our bosses have set one of these.
  1. Failing becomes Expected – Once failure becomes expected, well, you don’t really have a goal anymore, do you? I know I’ve seen this in corporate America more times than I can count

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So, while goal-setting has a lot of positive effects, it has some dark sides that people don’t always consider.

It gets back to the “attainable” part of SMART goals. Not attainable only when the planets align, but attainable on most days if we push for it.

So, perhaps not the Nanowrimo sprint, but maybe a five-hundred words per day marathon. Yes, it’s going to take 3.5 months to get the same 50,000 words, but perhaps that’s a habit you can maintain without your spouse threatening to throw your computer in the front lawn.

 

How about you? Have you ever found goal-setting to be de-motivating? Or maybe you’re just the opposite and goal setting really inspires you. How do you set your goals? How do you measure success?