Why I’m Not Setting Writing Goals for 2021
By: Rachel Tindall
Tags: Creative Writing, Goals, Writer, New Year, Writing

There are mere days left in 2021, and as I’m sure many of you have done, or are doing, I’ve set goals for 2021. I don’t do New Years’ Resolutions because that just doesn’t work for me; however, the excitement of setting new goals for a new year is palpably exciting for me.

Do you get excited about setting goals?

I feel like it’s a strong way to start out a brand new shiny year — with exciting things to work on and look forward to.

With 2020 having been so difficult not just for me, but for the whole world, I went lofty on my 2021 goals. They’ll be hard to achieve, and some of them I’m sure probably sound nuts for anyone who doesn’t have the same kind of open mindset as I do about what I can achieve.

I mean, who expects to pay off a pretty hefty pile of credit card debt after being unemployed for 8 months the previous year? Let alone put triple digits in multiple savings accounts.

2020 was so bad that I couldn’t help but dream probably even a little bit bigger than normal.

Here’s the thing, though — I’ve always been about shooting for the stars. The goals that matter most to me are the hardest ones. They’re also the most satisfying when I reach them! 2020 was so bad that I couldn’t help but dream probably even a little bit bigger than normal.

I’ve got business goals, personal goals, and as probably everyone else has, a few health goals. I got a little more specific than normal, because I tried to make them more bite-sized — one step leads to the next and so on.

One set of goals that’s notably missing, though, is writing goals.

Kind of crazy for a writer to not have writing goals, right?

It’s completely intentional, and I feel amazing about it. I also think other writers might feel great about doing something similar with their writing.

It’s also worth noting that I write professionally, so when I say I don’t have writing goals, I mean for my creative writing, not writing I do for my business.

Photo by Yannick Pulver on Unsplash

Here’s why I didn’t set writing goals for my creative work:

It takes the pressure off.

I’m connected with a ton of writers, and almost every day I see writers posting or responding to social media with this incredible amount of pressure to put out more work. To be the best writer. To publish. To publish again. More more more.

Whoa!

That’s not what I signed up for. I mean, yes, I do have intentions of being published in the future, and I realize the traditional publishing process is grueling, but dang! I have to wonder if the amount of pressure that writers feel has sucked all the fun and passion out of the writing process itself.

I’m not interested in rushing anything about my creative work. I don’t assume it will pay my bills like my business does, and I don’t need it to — that’s too much pressure! So I take an extra 6 months or a year to finish my first draft or edit my manuscript before I get beta readers — that’s fine by me. As someone who got so discouraged from creative writing that I stopped for almost a decade, it’s critical to me that everything in my process feels good.

It gives me space to be more creative with what I write.

I’ve been working on my novel for a little over 18 months now and I’m still in love with it. Each time I write, my heart fills with joy. There’s nothing else I do in my life that makes me feel quite the same.

That being said, I set a goal to be done with my first draft by the end of this year and I’m not even close. I’ve made some good progress, but it’s not even a complete plotline at this point, even though it’s getting there.

And that’s okay!

When I set that goal, I couldn’t have imagined the year I’ve had, and while it’s been hard to give myself grace, it’s also been an important piece of growth for me because I’m so goal-oriented in the rest of my life.

It’s not just about drafting and editing and publishing, but the journey that I take to do all of those things.

My novel is truly a work of love, as you may have heard from many writers. Not having constraints on what I expect it to be feels great because it gives my novel room to evolve. It’s not just about drafting and editing and publishing, but the journey that I take to do all of those things. It also gives me a chance to step away and work on something else if I need to without feeling the pressure and guilt of missed goals looming over me like a dark cloud.

Photo by Dan DeAlmeida on Unsplash

It keeps things fun.

Having fun with my creative work is important to me because it’s not just something to do, it’s something I love. I adore giggling with my best friend as we talk about how crappy the bad boyfriend is, or how dumb the main character, Callie, acted even though she’s smart!

I love letting Callie wander through her own story at her own pace and pretty much do her own thing as I take down the words. Truth be told, I do the physical writing, but the story is all hers.

Not having goals allows me to expand and get creative with what I do during the writing process. If I was on a strict timeline, I’m sure I wouldn’t be able to allow Callie nearly as much free reign, nor would I be able to take a couple of weeks off at a time until inspiration strikes again.

It makes it less like a “to do list” item.

I’m all about lists — I’ve got them out the wazoo! In fact, it’s probably a little unnerving for people who first work with me. But my creative work is the one place I don’t have a to do list.

Truthfully, I don’t even have a true table of contents or anything. I just have a Google doc with a list of bookmarks at the top of the document that will take you down to each individual scene. I didn’t even have that at first, either. It was just all one big block with scene titles in between. I figured out pretty quickly, though, that scrolling through 100+ pages of text trying to locate one thing you need to remember or update kind of sucks.

Enter the bookmarks.

So, even though it’s very out of character for me, I let it be messy. And you know what? It’s completely fine. I find that when I put creative writing on the “to do” list as part of my very organized life it doesn’t feel that good. More than that, it always seems to get pushed to the next day, and the next — as things that are “lower priority” always do, even though most of the time it’s what I want to do first.

Even though it’s very out of character for me, I let my creative writing be messy.

So I decided to stop making it an item on my to do list and just enjoy it. I don’t add to my novel every day, but it’s okay. I enjoy when I do write, and that’s much more important to me. Not having specific writing goals accentuates this low pressure practice.

I know I will make progress regardless.

When you love something so much, you don’t just stop thinking about it. Although I don’t add new sections each day, most days I do think about my novel and the characters. I think about what they need to be (but sometimes aren’t) doing, how they would react in a specific circumstance, and even what they would be like if I met them in person.

So, for me, not setting specific goals doesn’t mean I’ll never work on it. In fact, it feels like much more of an incentive to write more often because I don’t have that looming pressure over my head.

I don’t necessarily know if this is universal because I often work with writers who procrastinate and prefer deadlines to manage competing priorities. I do know that creative writing is something I love to do, and want to do, so I’m not particularly worried about stopping without goals to achieve.

So that’s it — I’ve got big goals for next year. If you follow my blog you’ll hear more about them as 2021 starts and progresses! One thing that won’t be there is creative writing goals, and I’m equally excited about not having goals as I am about continuing to make steady progress on my novel.