Welcome!

Please join us to discuss everything literary (especially kid literary): good books, the writing life, the people and businesses who create books, controversies in book world, what's good to snack on while reading and writing, and anything else bookish. We welcome your thoughts.

Friday, June 22, 2012

An Update on Self-Imposed Goals:

by

Dave Amaditz


I woke up today and looked at the calendar and realized that over half of June is already gone, which means that we’re nearly halfway through with calendar year 2012. Wow! I can't believe it. My parents, and everyone else who imparted words of wisdom upon me, were right when they said time flies. On a personal note, I find that the older I get the faster it seems to go.

Since were nearly at the halfway point of the year, I thought it would be the perfect time to give an update on a post I wrote earlier this year:

Resolutions. Goals. Quotas. Are they needed? Original post date, Friday, January 20, 2012.

In the post I made it clear I was not one to make a New Year's resolution, however, I also stated I established goals for my writing, one of which was to write for four or more hours a day, every day, and to complete at least one polished chapter, somewhere between 7 to 12 pages a week.

Back in January when I wrote the post I had just completed chapter 6 of the novel I am rewriting. Today, at the time of this post, I've just begun chapter 29. Some quick calculations tell me that exactly 22 weeks have passed and that I have written, believe it or not, exactly 22 chapters. Wow! (See more detailed boring math calculations below.) I'm really quite surprised at the accomplishment, and satisfied as well, since I hadn't even thought of calculating it, or keeping tabs on the goal until I decided to write this post.

Not bad, huh?

Has anyone else kept track of their self-imposed goals? How about a New Year's resolution you may have made?

By the way, I now have a new goal, which is to maintain the pace of writing which allowed me to meet my original goal.

(I've written 173 pages in 154 days. That's 7.86 pages per chapter and 1.12 pages per day... Don't worry I used a calculator for the exciting math.)

4 comments:

  1. Way to go Dave! It's so exciting when you make a goal, then meet or exceed it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow, Dave, I can't believe it's been six months since you wrote that first post! Congrats on your accomplishment. My recent goal: to finish a game room remodel before hosting a going away party. I finished the room yesterday. The party--tomorrow!

    ReplyDelete
  3. That's wonderful! I'm finding it difficult to maintain my writing goals in the summer with the kids home. Maybe I should adjust them for these two months.
    Anyway, congrats!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Marcy, Fran and Dawn,

    Thanks for your positive comments. Yes, time flies, and yes, it is a fantastic feeling to meet and exceed goals you have established for yourself.

    As for adjusting goals... I think we do that all the time, sometimes without realizing what we're doing. Change and adaptation is essential. Do whatever you need to do to succeed.

    ReplyDelete