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Goals Are Not Just For Soccer Balls

The FIFA soccer championship has been over now for weeks and yet I’m still pondering something. Would I be better at setting and working toward my goals if I had a stadium filled with people to cheer me on?

Writing is such a solitary process. We sit for hours at our computers and type out our stories. Sometimes I just sit while I contemplate a plot turn or character (my husband calls this napping, I prefer Ann Lamont’s term “wool gathering.”) But it’s not like we have a crowd of people gathered around us and urging us on to finish the next chapter.

It seems like whenever I do set a goal  I become my own worst enemy. I plan on writing 5 pages a day and somehow I hit a wall at 4. Try as I might, everything I write on the fifth page is worthless drivel. Perhaps if I hired a rabid “writing” fan I could manage a game saving head shot at the final buzzer and get that last page done, shimmering with symbolism and hyperbole.  The critics would go wild and my readers would weep with joy.

But alas, it’s not to be. I must play this writing game alone. I must dodge the opponents of writer’s block and laundry and cross that finish line to my own applause.

Maybe I’ll buy a vuvuzela  just to cheer myself on…

6 Replies to “Goals Are Not Just For Soccer Balls”

  1. I’ll take that fifth page of ‘worthless drivel’… it’s probably still better than most. When I hit a wall sometimes I just shove through it with the knowledge that it’ll probably get deleted later. After a while, my brain gave up trying to fight and actually made some decent output when I forced it.

  2. I always battle with myself about it. Take yesterday, for instance, I wrote five pages but when I got up this morning I deleted four. Does that count?

  4. Heather, I know I can always count on you for encouragement! Say a prayer that I can work out the ending in a way that’s as exciting and suspenseful as the rest of the book!

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