WIGs

No, I'm not blogging about hair.

A few weeks ago my boss sent me to a three day seminar on leadership run by the Stephen Covey folks. I love this guy's work - The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People was a life-changer for me.

One of the things discussed at the seminar were WIGs - Wildly Important Goals. These are "the vital few goals that must be achieved to fulfill the purpose, or nothing else you achieve really matters much."

Covey says that a well crafted goal should:

• Be specific and clear
• Be explicitly linked to a purpose
• Be written in plain language
• Be broken into bite-sized chunks
• Be measurable
• Be deadline driven

When I applied these principles to my work related goals, I was surprised to discover that the things that should be WIGs were the things that I routinely shoved to the back burner. They're not very glamourous, down right tedious in fact. And they're not the kinds of things that generate public recognition.

So now I'm working on writing goals and trying to apply those same principles. It will come as no surprise that one WIG that applys to every writer is to write. Whether that be every day or every week or whatever works for you, if you're not writing you're not going to meet the goal of getting published.

To my mind, another no-brainer WIG is honing your craft. To me, that means more than "butt in chair". It means getting and giving feedback through critique opportunities. It means doing the research necessary to make your story and characters believable (and accurate). It means continuous learning about the craft of writing. It means networking with other writers or finding other ways to rejuvenate your creativity - filling the well (a Julia Cameron reference) or sharpening the saw (a Stephen Covey reference).

I've seen dozens of posts and articles about goals - it's the goal setting time of year. Almost all of the ones from my writing life focus on cranking out pages. It concerns me, though, that none of them talk about balance.

Anyone can crank out pages but what good does it do if you're cranking out crappy page after crappy page? Volume alone isn't going to get you published. Quality counts. And how can you work towards quality if you're not taking time to critique or research or increase your craft knowledge? How can you rejuvenate if you're not spending time interacting with the people that share your passion?

For most of us, finding that balance also includes juggling a job and family and myriad other obligations that we either can't or aren't willing to give up in order to pursue our writing. Yet, we beat ourselves up because writing every day doesn't work for us. If only we'd try harder or manage our time better we tell ourselves. Horse puckey! There's nothing wrong with finding balance in your life. Writing is ONE thing we do. Having balance in your life, relegating writing to fourth or fifth or even lower on the list of priorties doesn't mean you're (I'm) not committed.

So the next time I see a post or article touting "butt in chair" as THE Holy Grail of writing goals, I'm going to delete it or throw it in the trash! And a pox on the people that use number of pages produced in a day or a week as the standard for judging committment to getting published!