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Monday, March 08, 2010Making Progress
I posted about writing processes a couple of weeks ago over at WordWranglers, and that got me thinking about goals. Then, at church last week, our minister talked about resolutions and goals and I had one of those "ah-ha" moments. Goals and desires are not the same thing; desires we have no control of but goals we do.
For example, I want (desire) to be a published author...I can be even more specific and list the houses I'd most like to be pubbed with but that's another post...However, I can't control becoming published. That is in someone else's (the editor's!!) hands. How my manuscript affects them, how it is presented by my agent, how they're feeling the day of the story meetings. All of those things are out of my hands. Therefore, actually becoming published is out of my hands. But, there are still things I can do: I can make my manuscripts the absolute best they can be. I can study the market. I can write the book of my heart. I can write 1000 words each day, I can turn off the infernal internal editor...and on and on and on. So, while I'm striving for publication, the goals I'm actually trying to reach aren't publication - they are writing the best book I can, editing it and getting it out to the CP's/agents/editors in the best shape it can be.
I'm not being a fatalist here. I believe I will be published one day and hopefully that one day is coming up in the near future. What I am saying is that focusing on the desire isn't going to get me there because I can't control anything once the manuscript is out of my house. I can control getting it written/finished, getting it edited, making it the best it can be and getting it out the door...so those are the things I'm going to concentrate on this year. And I'm going to leave the worry over there in the corner...at least for today!
And speaking of editors, the eds over at Editorrent had a great post about editors and critique groups (thanks to my pal Liz for passing on the link) and why they don't think the same... go check it out!
