A full-service literary agency that focuses on books for the Christian market.

Goals and Long-Range Planning

//  by //  35 Comments

Blogger: Mary Keeley

I have a confession to make. Today’s blog is an update of a post I did last year at this time. I realized about midnight that the blog I had scheduled for today is too similar to one that one of the other agents blogged about last week. I don’t want to bore you with redundancy. If you remember the following post on goals and long-range planning, I hope you enjoy it as a reminder. If you didn’t read it the first time, it will be all new to you.

The topic of today’s post might seem a bit premature. After all, the leaves are just beginning to change color in many places. But when I counted the weeks left in the year to wrap up proposals and get them out to editors, the reality struck me: there really are SMART Goals written on a blackboardonly nine weeks left for business to take place this year.

Every area of this wonderful but unpredictable publishing industry requires long-range planning and goal setting. For example, publishers currently are planning and budgeting for their 2016 releases. Product managers are working with acquisitions editors, designers, typesetting and editorial departments to create each book’s production schedule. After Thanksgiving, editors stop reviewing proposals and concentrate instead on getting current projects ready for the printer before they take time off during the Christmas holidays.

With this in mind, how might you need to adjust your writing plan for the remainder of the year? It might entail making an adjustment to your expectations. Don’t get me wrong, it’s important to set goals for ourselves. Especially so for writers. Goals and contract due dates keep authors motivated and disciplined. But, speaking to unpublished authors, don’t let them become like a ball and chain around your neck, dragging you down to discouragement when it’s apparent you won’t reach all of them despite your hardest effort.

Instead, take inventory of how well your writing is moving along at this point and adjust your year-end goals or find a way to double your efforts where necessary. All with an optimistic outlook and pure trust in the One who is in charge of Everything. Here are sample scenarios:

  • If all your manuscript needs is a thorough proofreading, you have time to get that done and potentially for your agent to shop it to editors yet this year. Unpublished authors still have time to secure an agent if your proposal and manuscript are edited, copy edited, and polished to a shine.
  • Perhaps research took longer than you expected because you found the most incredible details that will add depth to your book. Take the pressure of a self-inflicted submission goal off your shoulders and instead, rejoice! Your unexpected find might cause you to miss a goal to submit your proposal this year, but you’ve enhanced the ultimate goal to make your debut book the best it can be.
  • When you get a contract, due dates aren’t adjustable. But hopefully, you have followed your long-term plan, which included padding for the unexpected. Once one of my clients got an email from her editor asking if she could turn in both manuscripts early because the publisher wants to move her two books, scheduled for a 2015 simultaneous release, up to Fall 2014. My client had planned well—doubly well, in fact—and was able to respond, “Sure, I can send you one manuscript tomorrow and the other one next week when the proofreading is complete.” Her editor was thrilled. My client scored major points with her publisher, and she is ecstatic that her books will be published months earlier. Ah, the benefits of long-range planning and follow-through.

Goals and long-range planning are two of the writer’s best tools in your professional toolbox. When you build in room for flexibility, they can become a writer’s best assets both for your own positive outlook and also in your relationships with your agent, your editor, and your publisher.

Which of your writing goals is your biggest challenge at this point in the year? What realistic adjustments can you make to keep your outlook positive? What long-range planning lessons have you learned from personal experience?

TWEETABLES:

Goal adjustments and long-range planning: necessary tools for an optimistic author. Click to Tweet.

Avoid discouragement. Adjust self-imposed writing goals when it’s apparent they can’t be met. Click to Tweet.

Reader Interactions

Comments

    Leave a Reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

  1. Jennifer Zarifeh Major

    I’ve been doing some hard analysis of my timetable, and counting backwards to now.

    June-actual deadline
    May-have both books done, edited, tweaked, proofed, rested, proofed again. Which means they need to be FINISHED by late…
    April.
    So…
    January, February, March and half of April-writewritewrite.
    December-Son graduates RCMP training and leaves home. Which means a trip to his HQ. RIGHT before Christmas.
    November-return home from 3 weeks away in which I visit family, go to a thing, and then spend a week with my BFF. Spend 3 weeks catching up on my house and writing.
    October-leave the 18th. Spend 2 1/2 weeks prepping my house and writing as much as possible. Work on antiques.
    September-umm, we’re almost done. But I need to make a one sheet and write a synopsis of Book 2, refinish 2 antique dressers, sew two blouses (AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN)
    Now that I’ve looked at things?

    …freak out….

    😉

    Reply

  2. Shelli Littleton

    Though not set in stone, I’ve met my writing goals for this year so far. I still have a few contracted articles to complete by December.

    One of my completed goals was posted on Dayspring’s (in)courage site today. I’m thrilled to be a guest writer! If you get a chance to head over … http://www.incourage.me/?p=161362

    And I’m thinking ahead to next year. I may take a tiny break to pray about those next steps. I have two projects barely started … not entirely sure which way to go.

    Reply

  3. Andrew Budek-Schmeisser

    I make it a point not to talk about writing goals (or other goals), preferring ‘opera non verba’ as my modus vivendi. I will say that I’ve been challenged (thanks, Lisa!) to start a new blog with a daily ‘grace quote’; it’ll be up Oct. 1 at http://www.dailygracequote.wordpress.com if anyone’s interested.

    Realistic adjustments? Resolve every morning never to give up, and to make up excuses to win. As a writer, you can’t be defeated except that you choose defeat. If you choose every morning to keep going, keep writing, well, you may die before you get to the NYT bestseller goal, but at least you’ll always be going in the right direction.

    The only long-range planning lesson I’ve learned is Do It Now. Get stuck in, get the job that’s immediately before you done. It’s not going to get easier with time, and it won’t go away.

    And this.

    If you have a God-given mission, never turn away from it, no matter how unrealistic people (including yourself) say it is, or how they may ridicule it.

    Learn not to listen to the counsel of fear, envy, or contempt.

    If I had, I would not have the wife I have, the two-score-plus dogs that share my home would have died lonely and unloved, and I would never have written a novel (much less five…never mind lack of success, they EXIST). And I would not be alive if I believed the doctors.

    Life’s about winning, winning’s about attitude, and attitude animates your goals.

    Reply

      • Andrew Budek-Schmeisser

        Thanks, Shelli!

        I’m looking forward to it, though the thought of coming up with a good quote and commentary every day is daunting.

        But now that it’s out in the open, I can’t back away from it. I figure God will guide this effort, as he does everything else.

      • Shelli Littleton

        Yes, a quote a day is a daunting task. But you are so right … God will provide. Maybe you can take contributors!! 🙂 Will you leave your BlogSpot behind? Will people be able to easily find you if they go to your old address? I’ve wondered about that. I need to move to WordPress … probably …

        I just love how WordPress is so easily linked to Twitter, Facebook, etc.

      • Andrew Budek-Schmeisser

        Blogspot and “Blessed Are The Pure of Heart” will continue, and will remain the primary focus.

        I believe in its mission, to promote good marriages, and I’ll never abandon that. Illness has cut the schedule a bit, but I’m returning to the 3-times-per week and God willing will hold to that,

        Marriage is the biggest adventure we undertake in this life. I’m honored to be able to say something about it, and to have people who think it’s worth hearing.

    • Mary Keeley

      Andrew, your never-give-up, stay-the-course attitude is what so many writers need. How many enduring literary works we might not have to enjoy and find personal meaning from today if those authors had given up too soon.

      Reply

  4. Wendy Macdonald

    Mary, the following words of yours give me peace: All with an optimistic outlook and pure trust in the One who is in charge of Everything.

    Thank you for those words.

    My schedule is open since I’m working on a debut novel and haven’t begun to query yet. I’ve read that newbies often query too soon and should make sure they’ve written the best book they can while continuing to learn the craft.

    My learning has caused me to go back and work again on my POV and GMC. I’m so glad that I didn’t submit too soon.

    Blessings ~ Wendy ❀

    Reply

      • Wendy Macdonald

        Andrew, I can’t imagine you ever asking a dumb question. It stands for goals, motivation and conflict.

        I purchased an e-book by Debra Dixon under that title and it’s helping me a lot. My main character needed work on his GMC. Thankfully I already knew a secret about him that I could play on.

        They say not to save things for a sequel, but to give it all in each book–so I’m going for it. ❀ Otherwise my book would have been too quiet.

    • Kathy Schuknecht

      Hi Wendy,
      I’m also working on my debut novel and I agree with you…I don’t want to be a newbie who queries in haste!
      I also had GMC by Debra Dixon highly recommended to me. I found a hard copy online, and it is a great reference. If anyone is interested, the website to order is:
      gryphonbooksforwriters.com

      Reply

    • Andrew Budek-Schmeisser

      Thanks, Wendy…though I have to admit that when I read “goals” my mind translated it as “goats”.

      And my heart leapt, alas prematurely, for joy.

      Good point about not holding back for a sequel. I never really thought in those terms, but it makes a LOT of sense.

      The more you build in the first go, the more material and scope you have to carry on the story, I bet.

      Reply

      • Wendy Macdonald

        Thanks, Andrew, for making me giggle.

        I was holding back in my WIP until I read about giving it your all. You’re right about ideas growing out from the ones already written. The well won’t run dry.

        But beware of goats that eat the bucket and the rope. ❀

  5. Jenni Brummett

    I’m doing my best to chip away at rewrites so I can send a transformed MS to my (very) gracious agent. Eating the elephant one bite at a time, to be exact.
    I imagine every one of you can relate to how slow-going the publishing process is. That’s why commiserating and learning with this community is imperative.

    A small goal I’ve met is writing daily, premeditated Facebook posts that pinpoint and engage my future readers.

    Have a blessed time at ACFW, Mary!

    Reply