Annual Writing Goal Progress in Q3, 2024 (Plus When to Quit a Writing Goal)

We’ve got slightly under three months left in 2024 … and this is the time when I start to think about all the writing I haven’t yet got done!

If, like me, you had a busier-than-expected summer, you might be running behind where you’d like to be with your writing. By this point in the year, you may also have changed or even ditched some of the writing goals you had back in January.

I’ll run through how my writing goals went during July, August, and September … and I’ll share some thoughts about how to know when it’s time to quit a writing goal.

Recap: My Writing Goals for 2024

I posted my goals back in January. They were:

1. Write 250+ words of fiction every day
2. Finish and publish my novel Reaper
3. Write four short stories
4. Write weekly blog posts and newsletters

The last few months have, frankly, felt like slow progress, due to various family / kids / summer break / school related things. There have been lots of lovely things in there, and great progress on many fronts, but not generally on my writing-related goals.

Progress on Goal #1: Write 250+ Words/Day of Fiction

This goal fell down in Q3!

For at least a couple of months, I felt like the 250 words/day goal wasn’t really working well for me. It only took 10-15 minutes each day, but I didn’t feel particularly motivated. Even with added brainstorming time, it still felt as if I was spinning my wheels on both the novels I was drafting. Neither project excited me.

So in mid September, I decided to just stop. It was a great experiment to try the 250 words/day, and I’m glad I gave it a go, but I feel it’s not the right fit for me and my writing process.

More on quitting goals in a minute…

Progress on Goal #2: Finish and Publish Reaper

I did not make good progress in Q3. I slooooowly read through Draft 6 and made tweaks (and I was still finishing it off this week).

In Q4, I’m blocking out chunks of time on my calendar for Reaper. Hopefully I won’t be doing too much more editing … but I still need to commission a cover, write a blurb, and do all the other bits that  go along with self-publishing a novel too.

Progress on Goal #3: Write Four Short Stories

My break from short story writing continued. I’d planned to write and submit a short story, but none of the competitions I looked at really grabbed me.

I’m still hoping to get a couple of short stories done before the end of the year, but I’ve also got a big new writing project I want to work on. (More on that in a moment.)

Progress on Goal #4: Write Weekly Posts and Newsletters

I took some of the summer off, and I haven’t been so ahead with blog post and newsletter ideas as I’d have liked since getting back to the blog and newsletter a month ago.

But yesterday, I did a whole lot of brainstorming! I filled out the rest of my content calendar until the end of December, so there are plenty of posts and newsletters coming your way. 😉

When to Quit a Writing Goal

I quit my 250 words/day goal a few weeks ago … but how can you know when it’s the right time to quit a writing goal?

For me, a couple of things told me it was time.

First, I’d pushed on with this goal when I wasn’t feeling it … and I still wasn’t feeling it! For at least a couple of months, the daily writing had felt like an effort rather than something I was excited about. I was pleased to keep up my streak, but it just wasn’t creatively rewarding.

Second, another (more important) goal was suffering for the sake of this less-important one. Because I had so many non-writing things happening during Q3, often the only fiction-writing time I had was my 250 words/day. But getting Reaper finished and published was more important to me than writing a set amount of fiction daily.

If you’re thinking about quitting a writing goal, you might want to think about:

• Are you just having a bad writing week … or has this goal felt like a struggle for several weeks, or even months?
• Is this goal getting in the way of another, more important, goal?
• Has something changed in your life since you set the writing goal? (E.g. perhaps you’ve got a new job and you’re much busier than you thought you would be.)
• Would you be happier if you let the goal go? (That alone is a perfectly good enough reason to quit.)

New Goal Incoming…

Something else I realised over the past few months is that I’d really love to write something aimed at traditional publishers again.

I’ve had a non-fiction book traditionally published (Publishing E-Books For Dummies, in Wiley’s iconic series) and I’ve had a few short stories published by magazines … but I’ve never placed a novel with a publisher.

So during Q4, I want to plan and draft a new novel, with the goal of eventually having it traditionally published. I’ve been juggling around my schedule a bit to make this possible.

In October, I’m going to be working through Anne Helmstadter’s course Immersed in Story. Then in November, I plan to do a whole lot of drafting! I’ll let you know how it all goes in my end-of-year update.

How about you? Have you changed, dropped, or added any writing goals this year? Drop a comment below (or email me, ali@aliventures.com) to let me know how things are going.