Description:
Are you ready to hit 2025 running toward your writing goals? If not, do not fear! This episode covers 5 essential tactics for planning a successful writing year, no matter what your goals are. 2025 is right around the corner, and before you know it you'll be striving toward your next writing achievement.
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You are listening to The Novel Writing Podcast, Episode 159.
Introduction
I'm your host, Colleen Mitchell. Grab a cup, cozy up, and let's get to writing!
Today's episode is going to ease us into 2025 writing plans because this is the time of the year that's a bit of a black box, what with Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Years all happening within the same week.
This is usually the week when I plan the next year, which makes this the perfect time to take a look at writing goals for 2025 and set yourself up for success right from the start.
No matter your views on New Year's Resolutions or even goal setting in general, there's no denying that the start of a new year is like a clean slate for a lot of us, and that's why so many people recommit to goals at this time.
So grab a hot beverage, a notebook, your favorite pen, and get ready to plan out your writing year.
Part 1: Mindset
Before setting any goals, it's important to be in the right mindset. That means not looking at this past year (or multiple years) as failures because you haven't reached prior goals, and it means being kind to yourself in your plans. We often set ourselves up for failure and disappointment with goals we have no business setting (like a large income goal when you haven't even released your book yet, or aiming for rapid releasing 3 books when you aren't even done with the first one).
The reason we do this at all is because there's a part of us that believes we don't deserve success, and therefore if we make the measure of success impossible to reach, then we don't risk feeling bad about getting something we don't deserve. The problem here is that you end up feeling bad anyway, because you're setting goals that are not realistic. And that leads into part 2:
Part 2: Be Realistic, Not Optimistic
My goal eyes are larger than my goal stomach. I'm the first to admit that. I have a tendency to overload my plate with goals because some part of me actually believes I could accomplish them all, even though the track record doesn't back it up.
So this is my advice to you as you set your writing goals for 2025: be realistic. Think back through this past year and remember all the things that popped up that interrupted your carefully laid plans, whether those plans were for writing or other facets of your life. We have to expect that there will come unexpected things, which means we can't make our goals things that will actually take all year to do, and only if we follow the plan 100%, and there are no interruptions.
We all need buffer zones. Buffer zones are what protects us from overwhelm, from overcommitment, and they give us time and space to react and respond to the unexpected things that we know are coming, but we just don't know what they are. It could be a sickness, a car accident, work troubles, things with the kids or the pets or the rest of the family, natural disasters, literally anything that you do not have 100% control over lands in this category.
But if we account for the fact that they're coming, and give ourselves breathing room with our goals so that we're not frantically trying to play catch-up when something does happen, then our overall stress levels will be drastically lower and more manageable.
Part 3: Vision First, Goals Second
Vision is different from goals. Your vision might be to publish your book, to have a certain number of books in your backlist, or maybe it's just to finish the first draft. I call those Visions because in most cases, they are going to take longer than a few months. These are things that define accomplishment. Like when someone asks you what your definition of success is, or asks what did you accomplish this year, your answer is that thing.
Goals are those Visions broken down into things you must achieve in order for that vision to come to pass. It's taking the Vision and turning it into milestones, and milestones normally have dates attached, though they don't have to.
Let's go through some examples:
If your Vision is to publish your book by the end of 2025, then your goals will need to take into account where you are with the existing draft, and then break down all the steps that go with publishing, including professional edits, cover design, formatting, illustrations if you want, marketing plans, all the little minutiae that tend to fall through the cracks, and so on.
So my 2025 goal is to have the first developmental edit of Book 4 done and returned to me. My actual target date for giving my manuscript to Halie for developmental edits is September, because of her fall show schedule. This gives me a buffer of three months in case it takes Halie a little longer than usual, or if I get it to her a little late.
In order to get book 4 to Halie, I need to do the following, and these are all goals that support an even larger vision I have for my book business:
Publish book 3 (which includes all the separate components of finishing up book 3, such as the final draft, copyedits, proofreading, illustrations, back cover finalization, formatting, ISBN, LCCN, and setting up my ARC campaign)
Release 2nd editions of books 1 and 2, which involves DIY formatting with Atticus so that I can freely update the interiors whenever I need to
Writing a prequel novella that will be at the top of my group promo funnel with Bookfunnel
THEN I can write the first draft of book 4, because if I don't do all those other things first then I won't get any of them done.
My year is frontloaded with the first three, meaning I'm taking the majority of the year to work on the first draft of book 4. I'm not planning to start the first draft until April, and that's going to be primarily brainstorming and outlining, because it's the final book in my core series.
I'm giving myself three months to write the first draft, with another two months of rewriting and buffer time before I give the draft to Halie.
Of course, this could all change, but as it's been said, no plan survives first contact with the enemy... but without a plan, you plan to fail. Having the plan means I'm that much more prepared to weather all the curveballs already queued up.
I'm also a very type A personality, so take all this advice and these examples through the lens of your own personality and writing style. And if you're not sure what your writing style or persona is, we have a quiz for you linked in the description.
Once you have the goal/milestones established, that's when you can start creating task-based or habit-based execution items that will progressively lead you toward achieving that thing.
Mine is to be in-world at least 7 hours a week by April, whether it's for finalizing book 3, writing the prequel novella, or reformatting books 1 and 2, so that once I get to April and the first draft of book 4, I have established the stamina and schedule to maintain that flow with working on the new project. That's a habit-type goal that puts me further toward the other goals I'm working on.
Part 4: Keep it High-Level Past 6 Months
It's really hard to plan goals that begin more than 5 months from now. It's just over the horizon of where we can really make plans. So if you do want to plan out the whole year, keep July through December vague or high-level rather than detailed on what you're going to do and when.
A lot of people swear by quarterly planning, because 3 months is not too long that we can't adequately prepare for the 3rd month, and it short enough to keep our focus. Like I said earlier, my year is frontloaded into January through March because I have the clearest view of those months, and I have a good idea of what my workload will be like, plus the cyclical knowledge that the winter months are typically the ones where I don't go outside a lot, so I have more inside time to dedicate to things like writing. I also just like the feeling of accomplishment for having gotten things done in the early months of the year.
Part 5: Execution Over Planning
Plans are nothing if you don't take action on them. I'm a planner. I'm very good at planning. I could probably be a professional planner if I wanted, though I don't want that. The problem with a plan is that it's useless if you never take action on it.
Planning to write 500 words a day or for an hour a day is pointless if you never actually do it.
The doing is the hard part for most people. Taking action expends energy, focus, and attention, for a payoff that your brain isn't totally sure is worth it before you start.
Start small. Give yourself small wins, whether it's 100 new words or starting with an extremely low bar of success like writing 1 new word in your draft a day. It sounds stupid, but if you can't get excited about 1 new word or 100 new words, then what makes you think 1000 new words is going to be any different? I saw a social media post recently of a woman who posted a picture of herself with a booth at one of those craft fair type events where you can bring your books to sell, and she was celebrating having sold 2 books. That post went VIRAL because she was so excited about 2 books, and that post going viral made her Amazon sales absolutely take off. She didn't expect it. She didn't orchestrate it. She didn't plan for it. She was just excited about selling 2 books, and wanted to share with her probably small audience.
So get excited about writing 1 word or 10 words or 57 words. If you only wrote 50 words a day, no matter what, you'd have 18,250 words at the end of the year, which is 18,250 words more than if you set your goal to 1000 words a day and then chose not to write anything because that number was too high for you to overcome.
So, to summarize.
How will you achieve your 2025 writing goals?
Get in the right mindset.
Be realistic about what you can do in a year, knowing that a plethora of derailments and curveballs are heading right for you.
Pick your vision first, and then break it up into goals that can be further broken down into milestones and tasks.
Don't try to plan in detail past six months, and
When in doubt, execute, even if it's the teensiest step forward.
When you're a writer, every word counts.
We here at Tally Ink wish everyone a very happy holiday season no matter what you're celebrating, but from me personally, Merry Christmas, and Happy Hanukkah.
That's it for today's episode! Thanks for joining me, and remember, the first draft is supposed to be garbage.
Show Notes
Dive into the first episode of the Novel Writing Podcast with your host Colleen and her sometimes-guest Halie Fewkes Damewood! Here, we give you the gist of who we are, what we do, and what you can expect from this podcast.
What to do next…
Halie & Colleen are both authors! Find their books below:
Secrets of the Tally, by Halie Fewkes Damewood
The Chronicles of Talahm, by Colleen Mitchell
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