Goals for 2012 and Row80 Sponsor
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Now I’ve never been the one to make New Year’s Resolutions, but I thought that stating some new goals for 2012 might a step in the right direction.
Having participated in two rounds of ROW80 in 2011, I’m stepping it up a notch by being a Sponsor for A Round of Words in 80 Days Round 1, 2012. In the past six months I’ve learned a lot about the craft of writing and what I need to do to achieve my goals. In the last round, I didn’t achieve as much as I wanted to. Somehow November and December ended up being busy. The other problem was the I had set myself some more global goals. This time I have got to be more strict on myself to make sure I achieve my more specific goals.
So here goes nothing. My goals for the first round of ROW80 in 2012:
1. Work on my novel from 8:00pm to 9:00pm Monday-Thursday. I know that this time in the evenings works for me because by 8pm I’ve had enough time to come home from the day job, eat dinner, relax for a bit, check social media and then get back to the grindstone. If I don’t set myself a daily goal, then I will rely on me finding sometime during the week to get in my 5,000 weekly word goal. I will also try to get some writing done on the weekends, but it would be nice to dedicate that time to write my blog posts for the week.
2. Finish my first novel. I’m about 3/4 of the way through my novel and I aim to finish the first draft by the end of March 2012. I will have to write a lot of words to finish it, but I can’t state a word count end goal because I don’t know how many words are left.
3. Blog 3 times per week and think of new weekly topic. I try to blog about Travel on Mondays, Writing on Wednesdays, and Thursdays/Fridays are open to Book Reviews or other lifestyle articles. I would like to think of a weekly topic to write about that doesn’t take so much time to write, research and sort through and upload photos for. So I have to starting brainstorming and come up with a new topic/theme.
4. Maintain ROW80 Sponsor duties. Being a sponsor, I need to make sure to remember to check in on the other ROW80 participants on Wednesdays. There are two check in’s a week and I usually check in on Sundays, so I have to make a conscious effort to remember to check the linky on Wednesdays.
5. Keep up with social media. I should make this goal more specific. Lets say…I comment on 5 blogs per week and maybe move up from there. I read a lot of blogs, but I tend not to comment as I read them a day or two after they were posted and they are already stacked with comments. So I will try to clean out my Google Reader and somehow focus on the top 10-15 blogs I regularly follow. I think I’m trying to keep up with too many right now and it leads to too much blog reading in the evenings rather than writing. If anyone has any tips in this department, please leave it in the comments.
So lets gear up for 2012!
I’m with you on having too many blogs to read. The other day I eliminated several writing blogs. I found that I know all the stuff they write about now and don’t really need to keep reading the same info over and over. I kept a few writing/marketing/publishing blogs since they always seem to have new ideas and info. Beyond that, I kept the blogs of friends who frequent my blog and my LifeList Club writers. I probably eliminated 10 blogs at least. Makes it a lot easier to keep up.
Your goals are great and it’s good to see you making them so specific. That really helps keep you on track. I joined ROW80 again and am promising myself I’ll do better at keeping up with the writing and the socializing this time.
See you there, Nicole! By the way, congrats on being a sponsor!
I definitely have to do some housekeeping in my Google reader. I’ve got more blogs in there than I can keep up with…about 120-170 blog posts a day go up. Now that I’m back from vacation, I have a lot of catching up and cleaning to do.
Good for you, Nicole! I’ll be watching on the sidelines, cheering you on! Happy New Year!
Thanks Patricia. Happy New Year to you too.
Happy New Year, Nicole! And yes, kudos on being a ROW80 sponsor for this round. I’m hear to start the cheering for you. 🙂 Great specific goals.
Keeping up with blogs is hard. I live by Google Reader as well as keeping up with blogs I regularly follow, but found when I got really busy at the end of the year, that it was way too easy to get behind. I also wonder about commenting “late.” I feel weird sometimes commenting days later on posts. Not sure why since a good post is a good post no matter when it is discovered.
You’re right. Even if I’m late and there are over 30 comments, I usually will write a comment, but I don’t read through all the others first, therefore, I don’t know if I repeated what someone else said, but at least I commented. 🙂
Good for you, Nicole! You have specific goals, reasonable enough to attain. I’m impressed, though, by your ability to add even more to your schedule by sponsoring ROW80. Wow! I have cut back on commitments lately bc it was taking too much time/energy away from my wip. I look forward to following your blog again in 2012, my favorite day being Monday! 🙂
Yes, I think being a sponsor will make life a little bit busier, but its worth it to keep up with the ROWers. 🙂 I’m sure you will get much more writing done than me.
Good luck with your goals, and bravo on being a sponsor! If I’m short of time on reading/commenting on blogs I skim read and click like, then if I have more time I go back and read properly later (or not) but at least with a like people know I have been there 🙂
Yeah, I think I’ve been a little too shy of the like button because I usually click “like” on the blogs that really were excellent and I definitely want to read again later. But maybe it is a good solution to save time.
Some blogs I just follow for a month and then I know enough so I stop following them. There are only a few that I still folow since I started with being interested in blogs!
I think I sometimes have to ‘clean’ my bloggers list, otherwise I don’t have pleasure in reading them anymore.
So true. The blog list becomes more like work than fun reading. One of the first things I should do this week is clean out my list.
Great goals and they are nice and measurable! I think setting a certain time each day to write is great….that helped me so much during NaNo. So exciting to think that you are going to finish your novel this year (because I know you are!). Good luck with the first week of the round 🙂
Thanks Em. Yes, I think writing at a specific time of day should help me to writing consistently and at least daily instead of the major writing days and then major lags of no writing.
I’d love to hear how being a ROW80 sponsor goes. Maybe add that to your weekly/monthly blogging schedule.
Great goals, BTW. They’re pretty similar to mine!
So far the duties of being a sponsor seem manageable thanks to Kait who’s a great organizer. I will have to check out your goals. Welcome to ROW80 Jacqui.
Happy New Year Nicole! Here’s to a fab 2012!!
You are a sponsor for this round…woot woot! I love it – you are a fantastic cheerleader and I know we’ll all benefit from your blog visits and words of encouragement.
And your goals ROCK! Ambitious and well thought out. I think you are going to meet and quite possibly exceed your goals. Rock it out!!!
As for reading a lot of blogs, I am with ya. I try to read, comment, and tweet a lot of blog but I am realizing that to balance that with making progress on the writing front, I am going to have to streamline. I may have to accept stopping by someone’s blog once a week or “liking” more posts than commenting. I thought about setting a specific time limit or making sure I do my fiction writing first before blog fun.
Yeah streamlining will be something I have to implement this year. Thanks for the nice words. I think you win the best cheerleader award.
Hi!
Thank you for commenting on my blog. 😀
In regards to the blog reading, is it worth doing a specific search of your blogs for a particular topic or tag so you can focus on a smaller number rather than just reading lots randomly?
Kelly.
Yeah I will defiantly have to focus on a smaller number of blogs as right now its unmanageable. Thanks for the comment.
Nicole, thanks for being a sponsor and supporting us! You’re very generous. All the best.
Thanks Fabio. Wishing you the best in this round.
Nice practical, achievable goals, good luck with finishing your novel.