Of Elephants and Dreams

Art by Janine Nel.

~by Amanda Smith

A couple of months ago, I was prattling my mental to-do list aloud while my husband patiently listened. “… and I still have to write down my monthly goals before our 24 Carrot meeting tomorrow,” I said, running out of breath, and steam. And time.

His eyes glinted mischievously. “Just copy last October’s goals,” he said.
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Wrapped up in my busyness, I retorted, “If I could just copy last year’s goals, that means our method doesn’t work very well, does it?”


But wait? Does it? His silly suggestion intrigued me. 24 Carrot Writing celebrated its eighth birthday this year. For eight years (more actually, because we were an accountability group before we were a blog) I’ve religiously set monthly goals, checked them off, and reported back to my partners. Our whole premise is rooted in the idea of setting monthly goals and rewarding ourselves for reaching those goals. But the elephant in the room asks: Does it actually work?

I always check my yearly goals around this time of the year to see where I hit the mark, where I missed, and where, perhaps the road turned in a different direction. We also encourage our readers to check those goals mid-year with our June Years Eve blogs, making sure we are on track. But never have I ever checked a random month from the previous year to see how it lined up with my current journey. In the day-to-day work of writing, does setting monthly goals actually move me markedly forward? Color me curious!
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So, with a hint of trepidation, I flipped back to October 2021 in my beloved bullet journal to reread my goals. 

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 This is what I found:
October 2021
Start a new (long) non-fiction project


Rewrite a too long picture book as a graphic novel script. I actually didn’t get to that task in October. It carried over to November 2021.

Write a new Picture Book.
This one carried over a couple of months but…


Revise a Picture Book using a method taught in an online class.

Write poems for an anthology and submit.

​Now
​This project is outlined, about 30% complete, and the proposal is ready to go out this month.

The graphic novel script is complete and being queried.


​… I completed it and submitted it to a competition in May.

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The manuscript went through a couple of revision rounds and is currently being queried.

​One of these poems was selected to be published in Bless the Earth: A Children’s Book of Prayers and Poems for Honoring the Earth due March 2024.

What about other 24 Carrot writers? I asked them to peek back at their goals.
Kelly:

October 2021
Spend 30 minutes 3x a week revising my middle grade novel.


Revise 3 picture book manuscripts.



Take Colleen Riordan's Wild Ink Marketing Class




Craft and present a program for my #KidsNeedMentors class.

Now
Completed revisions and gave the novel to critique partners in summer of 2022. Currently revising based on their feedback.

​Signed with an agent this Fall based on one of my picture book manuscripts. We will be out on submission in January.
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I have an author website, an email list of subscribers, and am active on social media in a productive and cohesive manner. When my next book launches, I'll be ready.
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Presented in November of 2021 and have booked a paying visit to a local library in 2023 to give the presentation. The program is listed on my website for teachers and librarians to find. 
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In the past Kristi had a running list of tasks she’d cross off upon completion, but in January 2022 she joined our accountability group and took up monthly goal setting. One of her January goals was to revise a picture book. Her goal for this manuscript was to send it to Gnome Road publishing when their submission window opened in March. ALPACHAS MAKE TERRIBLE LIBRARIANS will hit the shelves in 2024, published by Gnome Road!

The trend is consistent: projects that were started are now complete, rewrites and revisions occurred, picture books went from concept to query (with all the appropriate in-between steps!), some projects carried over from month to month (oops), but eventually, they get done (or end up in the “darlings file”).

Beautiful, inspiring forward motion.

By Jove! It works!

Would we have done some of these things, even if we hadn’t set them as monthly goals? Likely. But would we have done all of them in a timely manner? Definitely not. To be certain, the smaller things, such as those poems, would have fallen off my radar, and I would have missed out on the joy of this anthology to come.

When our kids sometimes feel overwhelmed by the size of a task, my husband would ask: “How do you eat an elephant?”

One bite at a time.
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In the elephantine cycle of writing, revising, critiquing, polishing, querying, waiting, signing, selling, marketing, promoting, doing-it-all-over-again, monthly goals are manageable bites.

So this January, yes, dream big and set those yearly goals! But then commit to bite-sized monthly goals, break them up in daily tasks, and keep moving forward. And every once in a while, peek back and see your progress – the biggest, sweetest, brightest carrot of all!

To learn more about my bullet journal, and how you can also keep track of things like monthly and yearly goals, check out this blog.

About the art:
Janine Nel is a South African artist whose preferred medium is oil, using a photorealistic style. However, she enjoys experimenting with various mediums and paints a multitude of subjects. To learn more, visit her website here, or follow her on her Facebook art page.