How To Get Your Novel Published

My family manoeuvred me into taking a break from writing for the past two weeks. I had no idea it was going to happen, but they all arranged to take time off work to watch Wimbledon with me.

It was a lovely thought, because we’re all tennis fans and we rarely get to spend quality time together. But it was also something of a mixed blessing, because they tore me away from my work!

Still, I’ve loved the tennis. The two singles finals and the women’s doubles final were all wonderful matches; my favourite players won; and I accepted the impossibility of working while everyone was here and being rowdy. I even managed to show some grace about it.

Anyhow, the break is over and it’s time to get back to writing Quarter Square.

Except… it isn’t as easy as that. My muse is acting skittish. And it was all going so well, too!

I injured myself in a bad fall last week (the very evening I launched this blog, actually) and have been hobbling around ever since with a bruised coccyx, twisted hips, a swollen knee and elbow, a head like Birkenhead, and the scintillating zing of sciatica.

None of that stuff is helping me feel like getting back into the groove. But, no matter how soulfully my damaged body groans, or how stubbornly my mind shies away from the renewal of discipline, I know I have to plunge right back into that first draft.

Experience tells me there is only one way to do it: I need to get back in touch with my goals. Specifically, I need the motivating power of metrics.

I have three types of goals: long-term goals; enabling goals; and short-term goals. They’re part of the same picture and I need them all.

Long-term goals

Long-term goals are an active ambition to achieve our most cherished dreams, and our ultimate long-term goal will normally include the achievement of several nearer-horizon long-term goals on the way.

For example, my ultimate long-term writing goal is to have a long and successful career as a published author. To achieve this goal, I’ll need to achieve the stepping stone long-term goal of securing my first book deal with a publisher. And to achieve that one, I intend to achieve the stepping stone goal of getting represented by My Perfect Agent^TM.

It’s like climbing a mountain range, tackling a series of mountains in order to reach the highest pinnacle.

Now, climbing a mountain is a huge and daunting task. The best way to tackle big tasks is to break them up into smaller tasks, stepping stones along the way. But before we even get to them, our climber needs to be equipped and able for the task, and conditions need to be favourable.

Enabling goals

Everyone has different circumstances and needs. Everyone works best under their own optimum conditions. Once we’ve each examined our own situation and recognised our most favourable conditions, we can set goals that will enable us to climb – and to keep climbing – our mountains.

My circumstances are governed by a combination of my health and the ambient noise level in my workspace, which is at the computer and using voice recognition software in the living room of our family home. My needs are to maintain pain within bearable limits in order to keep exhaustion at bay; and to have a low noise level in the background so that the VR software and I can both work efficiently.

These are the goals I set up to enable these needs to be met.

1. Plan my work schedule one day at a time, according to the changing patterns of activity in our busy household, to ensure that the period in that day when I’m best able to write coincides with a quiet time that will occur at some varying point nearly every day; and

2. Manage my health sensibly:

• ensure I take adequate rest and spend regular hours in bed, even when sleep is impossible and even when a project begs me to use the quiet late-night hours to work on it
• eat little and often to maintain blood sugar levels and avoid blackouts
• maintain an intelligent balance in chemical pain relief, keeping a lid on the worst of the ouch while still allowing my brain to function
• take regular breaks while working (this is one I need to work on)

Other people will have other goals, of course. Yours might include keeping a set time to write, ensuring all equipment is free to use and ready to operate, or meditating for a few minutes to clear your mind before you start work.

The list is potentially endless, and your mileage will definitely vary. But the important thing is that meeting these goals will enable you to tackle short term goals, which are the daily tasks that will take you, one step at a time, to your mountain top.

Short-term goals

Write them down!

The very act of writing them down is your first step towards meeting them. Once they’re there, in print or pixels, they exist. They’re real. You can see and touch them. They’re your route map!

This is hugely important and very motivating, because it allows you to measure your successes.

Mmm, metrics!

The acronym SMART is a helpful reminder that goals should be:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Relevant
• Timed

I set my short-term goals by the week, and measure my progress against them every day. And I do it in the company of fellow writers in the Daily Page & Word Count forum on Forward Motion. We encourage and support each other, which is also very motivating.

Here’s an example. This is my goal list for this week:

• 25k on the final pre-submission crit of my friend’s novel (at 77221 words, I’m more than halfway through it and heading comfortably towards the deadline three weeks away)
• 5k new words for Quarter Square (haven’t touched it for two weeks and my muse is nervous)
• 4 blogs minimum (at least 2 update-posts plus ‘keep in touch with friends’ posts & comments on my LiveJournal, and 2 articles here)

It’s no exaggeration to say that my active involvement in that forum, over the past two years, has transformed my work practices and has been a massive help in getting my first novel finished, and my second one planned and started.

There you go! Two mountains, right there, that I might not have conquered yet without daily discipline and support.

So, tell us. What is your highest mountain? What are the stepping stone goals on your way to your ultimate goal? How will you enable yourself to work towards your goals? And how do you measure your progress?

Show us your goals!