When you’re making your New Year’s resolutions, do you stop to think what you want to accomplish in your creative life in the next year?

As I’ve been thinking about what direction I’d like to take Here to Create, I started thinking about what other creative goals I have for the coming year. I’ve never been a huge fan of New Year’s resolutions. It’s so easy to start off the new year with optimism and excitement, then quickly crash and burn from trying to do too much too quickly. Still, there’s something compelling about the idea of having a fresh start, and the new year is as good a time as any to do some thinking and set some goals.

Writing Goals

Here to Create

• I plan to create a new design for the blog to make it more user-friendly.
• Even more importantly, I want to create a new posting schedule and stick to it. I have found that when I don’t have a concrete expectation for myself, it’s far too easy to put off posting indefinitely. I want to try posting less frequently than my old daily schedule but have more in-depth posts.
• As for specific blogging goals like increasing my RSS subscribers and daily visitors, I don’t want to set a number. Rather, I would just like to see these numbers continue to increase as evidence that I’m providing useful content to my audience.
• I am also planning on researching additional ways to make a little money from this blog. Rest assured though, that it will never be all about the advertising. I’m writing Here to Create out of a desire to share my experiences and help others when I can.

Establish a regular writing habit

• Writing consistently every day is a habit that seems to fall by the wayside when I get busy with the rest of life. Part of my problem in meeting this goal in the past is not specifying how long or how many words I have to write in order to meet my goal.
• I’m attempting to make this more concrete by saying that I need to write for 15 minutes every day. This can include blogging, working on a novel or other project, or freewriting. I plan to track my progress using Joe’s Goals.

Write fiction

• I’m not going to say that I’ll work on a novel every day, but I do want to be thinking about my stories frequently, whether I’m writing, revising, or merely mulling over my next idea. By itself, this isn’t so much a goal as a mindset I want to cultivate.
• I do intend to track when I’m working on a specific project. One of my downfalls in the past has been starting a story, then letting weeks go by without working on it, then losing interest. I’ll track how often I work on a project with Joe’s Goals.
• More concretely, I want to complete a first draft and do one revision of Heartwood, my NaNo novel, before the end of the year. I have several other stories that I also want to work on, but I’m not going to set any concrete goals for these stories just yet.

Participate in NaNoWriMo again

• I enjoyed NaNo and learned a lot about myself and how I write. I’m sure it will be a useful exercise next year too.
• Next year, I want to try plotting more thoroughly before November, with the goal of completing a first draft, not just 50,000 words.
• Another goal is to get involved with the local group of writers who participate in NaNo every year.

Other Creative Goals

Take photographs regularly

• At one time, I attempted to take a daily photo, but that quickly fell by the wayside. I would like to establish a more regular habit though, so I don’t suddenly discover it’s been months since I took any photos.
• I’m going to attempt a weekly photo session, with the understanding that photography seems to be a seasonal hobby for me. I prefer nature photography, but I really don’t like snow, so I don’t expect that I’ll start practicing this habit until spring.

Evaluate my interest in jewelry

• Jewelry-making used to be my main creative outlet, but I’ve hardly picked up my pliers for over a year. I need to decide if I want to renew my interest on a more limited basis, or if I should sell or give away all my inventory and supplies. If nothing else, making this decision will get rid of some guilty feelings and help me focus on what I really want to do.

Get organized

• This may not seem like much of a creative goal, but I find it much easier to think when my space is at least somewhat organized.
• Specifically, I want to finish the project I started last summer of sorting and organizing my creative work space. Tackling this project will be especially useful if I pick up the jewelry habit again.

In my experience, the key to setting goals is to also set a timeline for achieving those goals. If I try to start too many new projects at once, I don’t get very far on anything before I get overwhelmed and quit. But if I set goals that are staggered throughout the year, I’m more likely to achieve at least some of them. The most important thing to remember about goal-setting is: don’t try to tackle everything at once.

One useful strategy to prevent burnout is Scheduling Your Creative Interests. For instance, I plan to redesign Here to Create before I start classes again in a few weeks. I also plan to re-read and make notes on Heartwood in that same time period. But I probably won’t begin any of my other goals for the year until those two things are done. Making goals with an eye for the year ahead keeps me from losing sight of the things that are important to me without risking burnout.

So have you considered your creative goals for 2008?

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