A little over a year ago, I announced my writing goals for 2021. It’s past time to compare what I’d planned against what I actually accomplished, as well as look ahead to 2022.
Giddy at reaching my Stretch goals for 2020, I raised the stakes of my writing ambition. Performance against those aggressive plans was at first glance very disappointing:
Stories Drafted | Stories Revised | Stories Submitted | Total Submissions | Blog Posts | |
Minimum | 9 | 6 | 6 | 25 | 156 |
Goal | 12 | 9 | 9 | 50 | 182 |
Stretch | 15 | 12 | 12 | 75 | 208 |
ACTUAL | 8 | 4 | 4 | 60 | 112 |
I didn’t reach even the Minimum benchmarks in any of status levels. I did reach the Goal for total submissions (more on that later), but fell way short on my total blog posts. I also wrote last year about revising one of my drafted novels, and starting a new novel during National Novel Writing Month; these two goals also went unmet in 2021.
What happened last year? Why did I fail to reach most of my writing goals in 2021? I can identify two reasons:
- I attended 14 writing workshops, twice as many as I had in 2020. I learned a lot from these workshops, but they took a lot of time.
- I spent a lot of time researching literary journals and genre magazines – this is the main reason why I was able to reach the Goal for Submissions
It was actually a busy year for my writing – just not the type of busyness I’d expected.
I’m making the following changes for my 2022 goals:
- I’m going back to my 2020 goals for each story status
- Since I met my Goal benchmark for Submissions in 2021, I’m keeping these benchmarks for the coming year
- After considering whether to abandon any blogging goals, I decided to keep the benchmarks but with much lower numbers
- As the value I receive from workshops is certainly worth the time investment required, I’m adding these to my list of goals
- I still like the idea of returning to my novels, so I’m repeating the two goals I’d set for 2021 (revise one, draft another)
Here is my matrix of writing goals for 2022:
Stories Drafted | Stories Revised | Stories Submitted | Total Submissions | Blog Posts | Workshops Attended | |
Minimum | 6 | 3 | 3 | 25 | 100 | 6 |
Goal | 9 | 6 | 6 | 50 | 150 | 9 |
Stretch | 12 | 9 | 9 | 75 | 175 | 12 |
Next January, I hope to look back on the previous year with more satisfaction than I feel now when reviewing my 2021 goals.