How to Set Writing Goals and Finish Your Book

As a teen, you have plenty of time to continue to grow in your craft and finish your book. But even though you aren’t in a rush to achieve publication, you can decrease chances of procrastination and distractions by setting writing goals.

Here’s how:

• Time yourself as you write and calculate how many words, on average, you write in an hour. (For example: Let’s say it takes me 1 hour to write 1,000 words.)
• Decide on an amount of hours you are able to work on your book weekly. (If I can find time to write for 2 hours a day and five days a week, then I would be able to work on my book for 10 hours per week.)
• Calculate the estimated amount of words you could write per week if you stick to this plan. (In the above example, I could write 10,000 words per week.)
• Then, calculate how long it will take you to complete your book. (If I had only 20,000 more words to write of my book, then I could finish it within two weeks if I stuck with this plan.)

You could also do this process in reverse.

For example, if you hope to finish your book within four weeks and you still have 40,000 more words to write, you could:

• Decide on the amount of words you would like to complete in one week. (In this example, let’s say that you chose to set a goal for 10,000 words per week. That way, you would reach your goal of 40,000 words within four weeks.)
• Calculate how many words you can write in an hour. (Let’s say you wrote 500 words per hour.)
• Then, calculate how many hours per day you should devote to writing in order to meet your weekly goal. (You would be able to write 2,000 words per day if you wrote for 4 hours a day. If you wrote five days a week, then you would reach your weekly goal. And if you meet your weekly goal four weeks in a row, then you would have reached your ultimate goal of 40,000 words in one month.)

By breaking down your writing goals, you reduce chances of becoming overwhelmed at the idea of writing a book. Instead, you’ll discover how the process of writing a book is simple: It is achieved through the daily discipline of writing the same amount of words that could compose a blog post.

Stick with this, and eventually, your book will be complete!

Do you set writing goals? If so, has it helped you finish your book?

(PS: From now until the end of December, you can receive a discount off of my teen writing program, WRITE NOW! Click here to find out more.)