When I was writing the first draft of my book, I set an ambitious goal of 25 pages a month so that I could finish what I assumed to be my 300-page novel before the end of 2020. And I got pretty close! Like page 297 or so and quickly finished the last 10 pages during the first two weeks of 2021 (the book is now at 299 after some editing).
Then after the first draft came revising for the second draft, which I goaled myself on finishing by the end of Feb. And then editing my hundreds of grammatical errors with Grammarly by mid-March, and then working through my “come-back-to this-later” comments once that was finished, and then…what?
I’ve accomplished all of these goals and though my manuscript is far from perfect, I’m really happy with the current version. Do I need a new goal and keep pushing forward to get this thing closer to publication? Should I instead work on a new creative project for a while? Or is it best to hit the pause button and just chill the f out for a bit?
It’s weird, but instead of feeling grateful for having created a readable novel in under 15 months, I’m feeling really restless and a bit anxious and frustrated. Perhaps my new “goal” should be to take some time to actually live the lessons I write about in my book and notice and appreciate all that I already have a little more. At least for a few days…