Guest Author - Melissa Weise

Fiction writers, on the whole, tend to be a creative lot. After all, we spend a fair number of hours sitting alone in front of a flickering computer screen or blank page writing down words that paint a picture of a fantasy world that we created in own imaginations. We find this enjoyable: imagining scenery, creating complicated characters and pitting them against each other. So enjoyable, that many of us might put off other less creative and more practical tasks such as goal setting. Especially when it pertains to our writing. After all, setting a goal to do something creative can seem a little paradoxical and the superstitious among us (we know who we are) might even consider it bad luck. You don’t chain down the muse to measureable goals or she might just stamp her feet and leave in a puff of smoke. And we need her magical powers of inspiration!

Or do we?

Many great writers have come to the decision that inspiration is not all it is cracked up to be. “You can’t wait for inspiration,” says Jack London, “You have to go after it with a club.” And Leonard Bernstein says “Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of the time. The wait is simply too long.”

This “approach” can be goal setting. Rather than looking at our writing as a mystical process which often just leaves us with far too many blank pages and certainly not enough writing, becoming a fiction writer is just like becoming anything else. We have to decide what it means to us and then figure out what the steps are to mold ourselves into that role.

So first, ask yourself what it means, in your opinion, to BE a writer. Anyone can commit words to paper, but does that make them a writer according to your rules? Or does a writer require a reader to read these words that have been committed to paper? And does the writing have to be any good? If so, how good and by whose opinion does it have to be good? There is no “right” answer to these questions. Each of us has a different idea of what a true writer is. This idea was probably bred sometime in childhood or perhaps nurtured by a certain teacher in school. It doesn’t matter that everyone has a different opinion of what a writer is, just that you recognize what your opinion is.

Once you have a clear picture of what a writer is, ask yourself if it is your goal to be a writer. Perhaps the answer is yes, but perhaps you will discover that you really want to be only a certain type of writer: professional, hobbyist, personal. Learning this is good because now you know what sort of writer you want to become. Before you know this, it is difficult to set any writing goals that will feel fulfilling. This is because of the facets of the question you have to answer about what being a writer is. Without knowing exactly what you expect of yourself, setting writing goals can feel like chasing shadows.

But now that you know, setting your goals will make more sense because you know what to expect from yourself. If your goal is to become a professional writer, expecting yourself to write several hours a day makes sense but if you want to become a hobbyist writer, this would feel unattainable.

So, now that you have a clear picture of the writer you want to become, take a look at the writer you are now and what difference span between the two. In what ways are you acting like that writer you want to become and in what ways could you do better? What would you say are your biggest strengths as a writer and what are things that you really need to work on. Write this stuff down.

Now you are the last step. Figuring out measureable goals. Many people try to complete this step first and find it difficult but that is because the skipped the rest. So this should be much easier for you. Take a look at the list of things that you really need to work on and prioritize them. S What are the three most important things that you want to work on? Setting successful goal requires three things: the time period you want to complete it in, the goal itself and how you know you succeeded. So, for instance, if you wanted to be a hobbyist writer and that means that you need to complete four short stories a year and your top challenge right now is that you only complete one short story a year; your goal would be to write one short story every three months. You could further break this goal down and give yourself one month to plan the short story, one month to write it and one month to edit it. In fact, you could even break down your goals into what you want to accomplish each day in order to become more like the writer you want to be.

Just remember what Frank Tibolt said, “We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.”

So, go ahead and generate your own muse! Then check out the forums below and let us know what you discovered...