Category: Writing

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2018 Goal #2: Sell Another Book

I’ve tweaked this a little from the original post.

In July 2017 I sold a book to MacMillan. (That MacMillan — the big old amazing publisher (!!!) You’ll be hearing more about this, I’m sure.) Not only did they buy the book I tried to sell them, they bought ANOTHER book, too, which I haven’t written yet.

So my original 2018 goal was to write that second book. Because A) I’ve already been paid for it and B) it’s contractually due in January 2019.

But as I started to write THIS post, I realized–meh.

I’m going to hit that goal, no matter what. I don’t need a boost. I’ve got a lot of outside support for finishing that book. Like I said, I’ve been paid for it. My career depends on it. I have an editor and an agent expecting it from me.

But I have this really big, over-arching life goal: I want to have a writing career, not just one or two books.

So my goal for 2018 is to sell another book. One I’m not already contracted for.

This isn’t my favorite type of goal, actually. Because I don’t have control over whether or not a publisher buys any of my work. My real goal should be to write a book I’m not contracted for.

And if I do that, I’ll consider my goal met.

But I also want to let the universe know that I’d really like to sell that book.

(Please and thank you.)

I’m not 100 percent sure what that book will be. I have a couple of projects at various levels of doneness that I might finish up and run past my agents. Or maybe I’ll be struck with a shiny new idea.

Here are my action steps for this goal for 2018:

  1. Write for 10 minutes everyday. This has been my daily goal for, oh, most of my adult life. It works really well for me. But, with a contracted book and enough income from writing THAT book that I don’t need a day job right now, I’m obviously writing way more than 10 minutes a day. So I’m going to add this as 10 minutes a day of writing toward this goal.
  2. Figure out what I’ve already got done. I have a few projects that are at different states of doneness, like I said. I need to get organized with those and evaluate them.
  3. Look at my new ideas. I have a whole notebook full of ideas for books I haven’t done any work on. I need to take a look at those and see if one of them is right for this goal.
  4. Start A Novel Idea on this new project. A Novel Idea is my method of writing. It works spectacularly well for me. I used it to write the book that I sold last summer. I know how to write a book. The key is to not try to skip steps.