Well, I managed to get a new laptop and get it up and running without any interruption to the blog. Hooray! To that end, we continue with the Revisited series today. I want to take another look at levels of success. This is a really important topic to me. It matters not just to me and how I approach creation and execution, but it matters how creatives around me treat themselves. We’ll get into the details below.
Drawing from the Well
It was another good writing week. I finished another chapter and started the penultimate addition. It feels good to make progress. I’m not completely confident that there’s enough meat on the bones of those chapters, but that review will come much later in my balancing passes. The important thing is that I’m reaching the end of this step of the process. There’s still the gargantuan task of working through my Overall Notes for each arc. These are details that I have to address across chapters rather than solely within each one. Some of these are already in my rear view mirror, but definitely not all of them. More to come on that another week (next week maybe?).
I also took the opportunity to reformat the text of the manuscript. I have been working in Times New Roman this whole time, but I don’t want to lose the step late (LATE) in the process to change that to my preferred Lora font. So, I did that just yesterday. I had to adjust several things in that regard. This led to an actual reduction in page count. In truth, I probably added a page or two since last week, but the new page count is below.
Page 305
172,033/176,081 Words
Filling the Well
This was a killer reading week. I plowed through FIVE books this week to get back on and ahead of pace. The Dorothy Must Die series is just outstanding. It even moved me emotionally at the end of the main series. I’ve had so much fun with it that I just had to listen to the intervening novellas that fill in the history between The Wizard of Oz and Dorothy Must Die itself. Those are just as fun and satisfying and I’m making my way briskly through those as well. I should have another significant uptick next week.
11/105 for #ProjectBookworm2024
Well Chat
The next revisitation is a really important subject. On February 7, 2019, I talked about Defining Success. I want to cover this again with a little more nuance after my publishing journey last year.
Right off the top, the original post was very forgiving of apparent failure or defeat. I still have this attitude, but it has shifted now. Before, I advocated for more open-ended goals. Since then, I have done a 180 on this idea. I ascribe to SMART goals now thanks to my business management experience. SMART, of course, is an acronym: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Now, I don’t think most of us have an issue with Specific, even though I leaned away from that in the original post. You can’t just say, “I want to write” (unless the act of writing is all you’re going for). For me, this is “I want to write a book.” In fact, I want to publish a fantasy book series. More specific, bigger goal. I’ve talked about breaking that down before, so we’ll stick with just publishing a single fantasy book. This is inherently Measurable because it is ONE book. If you’re holding that book in your hand, you can measure ONE book. Now, is that Attainable?
This is the heart of my previous argument. Having a goal of being a NYT Best Selling author may be beyond reach. It can be a dream, but can you attain it? I’m not saying you’re not capable, but is that within your control? That’s the trick of creative works: you never know how they will land. You could write and publish what you think is your magnum opus and it could land with a yawn while something you just do for fun could be your seminal work. You just never know. Focus on what YOU can attain, not the dreamed-of, attached success.
Relevant tends to be more business-centric. If you’re creating a work, the goal is likely already going to be relevant to you. That leaves Time-bound. Now, I’m the first to tell you that I’m constantly moving the goalposts on my dreams. Life gets in the way. When I published Blood in the Storm, I said I wanted to publish Book II in 18 months. This was because I would be able to write far enough ahead to keep up that cadence. Boy, was I wrong. Life got in the way for a while making me think I wouldn’t have the funds to publish, so I dropped the timeline to 24 months and then basically dropped it completely. “One day,” I said. Then life shifted again and funds became available again. Now, I’m aiming for this calendar year, likely fall. That could all change again, who knows. Flexibility in your timing is critical, but have some kind of date in mind. It helps motivate you.
NONE of this has anything to do with the title, huh? I only laid all this out to show how much my thinking has changed on this. More than that, though, I’ve learned how to establish levels of success. I’ve always got the big dream (NYT BS? Yes, please!), but I’ve got steps back from that. When I published Blood in the Storm, just publishing was success. Selling more than five copies was the level beyond that. After that, breaking even was added success. Then I said that anything beyond that was “gravy,” as in it was just additional success, joy, and benefit.
Two things happened when I built this hierarchy in my head. First, the stress and worry evaporated. I was determined to publish the book. I would not be dissuaded. This meant that success was assured. Second, I was empowered to keep going. With despair permanently delayed, I couldn’t lose. I was emboldened to write on and push through the sometimes-maddening steps toward publication. I was free and excited. Since then, I approach every goal like this. There’s the immediately attainable, the mid-range hopeful, and the big dreams.
How do you manage your expectations of your own success? Is it working? Let me know on social media. Catch you next week.
May the tide carry you to safer shores.
BSG