Goal Tending

This is a season of change for my family, which is why my blog posts this summer are dealing with that particular six-letter word.

I’ve written about the necessity for a character to grow and change in some way from the opening sentence to the last word. But, as the writer, I’m also growing and changing—my goals, my abilities, my expectations. Today, my focus is on changing goals. 

Here are a few writing goals I’ve had over the years and the ways in which they’ve changed: 

• To make enough money each month to supplement my income ~ (Hear  me laughing!) I’ve had to lower my expectations some, but I’m not done yet.        
•  To have my work appear in major secular publications ~  I guess you could say, technically, I met this one when my light verse appeared in The Saturday Evening Post and Capper’s, although that wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. I was thinking more along the lines of my fiction being in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine or Woman’s World. But over the years, I’ve come to believe that God called me to write for the inspirational market, so my goal has changed and so has my mission. Now there are certain Christian publishers in my crosshairs and we’ll see what comes.
• To write contemporary mystery/suspense ~ I always figured my first book would be in the vein of some of my favorite secular authors, especially Mary Higgins Clark and Tony Hillerman. I hadn’t considered it would be an inspirational historical with a romantic mystery/suspense twist. (Though, I’ve always thought if I were to choose to live in another period in time, it would be the second half of the 1800’s.)     

We all need to set goals to grow or we’ll flop around in life like fish in the bottom of a boat. Sometimes, however, achieving a goal means being flexible and patient—understanding when we need to tweak it just a tad and being willing to do so. We need to realize that, even when our goals are within God’s plan for us, He has his own timing.   

To carry on the theme of change – Amazon announced that the sale of their e-books surpassed that of hard copies. As a reader, how do you feel about that? Would you rather read a book on a screen or one on paper? The words may be the same, but to me, there’s something special about the feel of paper and the beautiful covers on a book. What do you think? Are you ready to be a high-tech reader?  

Today, Tuesday, July 21, my June post, “A Change In Character,” is being featured on Lynda Schab’s blog, “On The Write Track.” Click on over and check out her helpful writing-related blog.