goals – Ridley Park

This is as much a reminder for me as a PSA. Time is the most limited resource you’ve got.

Consider your goals, and plan accordingly. Not everyone has concrete goals. As writers, we likely do. Finish that sentence, that page, that chapter, that draft, those edits, that book…

There’s social media – that’s this place – video games, partying, family and mates, eating and sleeping. Whatevs.

And don’t forget to take care of your mental health.

You may have many goals – or just one or two. Consider opportunity costs.

This blog post is distracting me from my editing. Still, I want to share. maybe it will help you.

Perspective is key.

Define your goals. Prioritise them. Make it happen.

Go away now!

My target goal for writing is about 1,000 words per day. It’s a goal I hit way more often than not. On a good day, I can reach 2,500 or more.

As a reference, I write in Word with pages formatted for a 6 x 9 form factor, so a page holds about 200 words, which equates 1,000 words to about 5 pages. Not too shabby. It puts 60,000 words at around 300 pages or 50,000 words — a small novel—at around 250.

Doing some more maths, at 1,000 words a page, one can ostensibly write a 60,000 word novel in about 2 months. Not bad, right?

You still need more time for editing, revisions, and so on, so 3 months per book of this size gets you 4 books a year. If you are writing tiny novels or novellas, then you might be able to double this. I ‘m not sure how sustainable this is, but maths doesn’t care about sustainability.

Some people think they can game the system and produce a novel a day with AI. The truth is that they can. The other truth is that the output will most likely suck. If you actually read the material critically, a person could not likely publish a book a day. A piss-poor book a week would probably be a challenge. A book a month or so might be within range — even more achievable for shorter fare.

This might be someone’s goal, but it’s not mine. My interest in writing to to write. It’s not about quantity or even commerce. My writing is not my livelihood. It’s an art. I’ve seen so many videos on YouTube given advice how to write and sell more books. Usually, this involved researching the marketplace and determining what’s hot. Is mystery hot this month? Write a mystery book. Need some ideas for books? AI will help.

I guess I just don’t come from that position. I watched a video the other day with a woman switching from offering low-content books on Amazon to some other business model. Her entire modus operandi is to make money online. Myself, I felt sorry for her. I know that two-thirds of people dislike their jobs, so she’s in good company. By that I mean, she might as well just pick some random money-making job because it’s probably as stupid as whatever else she’d be doing. The question is whether it’s worth it.

For me, I’ll stick with writing at least 1,000 words a day with the occasional doubling. Hopefully, I sell some books along the way. Time will tell.

Tag: goals

One Thousand Words