Writing Career Goals
If you sign up for my editorial services, you're gonna get a questionnaire. And one of the questions is, you allow yourself to dream big, what does that look like for this project or for yourself as a writer? Some writers want movie adaptations, or to write a New York Times Best Seller, but a lot of people just want to keep writing. They want to keep writing for a readership. They want to generate a fanbase. They want to make a living with my writing; they want to be able to quit their day job and write. So, these are all kinds of different flavors of goals that writers have for themselves as they think about building a career.
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Writing Career Goals Video Transcript
My name is Mary Kole with Good Story Company. And here's a video, kind of, for our advanced writers who are thinking bigger than just the book in front of them. They are thinking about their whole career and how to make career goals for yourself as a writer.
Ideally, a lot of the writers that I work with, that I talk to, they have more than one book in them. That is, like, kind of question number one. Some writers that I work with, they have just one idea. They want to do that idea as best as they can. They want to publish it or self-publish it, make it available for their family, and that's kind of it for their writing goals. But they're definitely in the minority.
When I hear from a lot of my clients who do have more than one book idea, it's I want to write a book a year. I want to learn and be the best writer that I can. I want to be a New York Times Best Seller. If you sign up for my editorial services, you're gonna get a questionnaire. And one of the questions is, you know, if you allow yourself to dream big, what does that look like for this project or for yourself as a writer. And, you know, we get movie adaptations, we get New York Times Best Seller, but one thing that's really telling to me in that questionnaire is that a lot of people, they just want to keep writing. They want to keep writing for themselves. They want to keep writing for a readership. They want to generate a fanbase. They want to share their stories with people and, you know, there are practical, financial considerations. For example, I want to make a living with my writing, you know. That's a very common one. I want to be able to quit my day job and write, you know. So, these are all kinds of different flavors of goals that writers have for themselves as they think about building a career.
I think the most important consideration, the most important kind of short-term goals that you can make for yourself after you clear that bar of getting an agent, clear that bar of getting a publishing deal and, you know, you can kind of transition from aspiring writer to published author, the way I like to think about a person in that stage of their career is somebody who just wants to learn and grow and get the next book. I do think that thinking about film adaptations and all of that is really fun. It's really motivational. It's not necessarily germane to the practical kind of putting one foot in front of the other day-to-day considerations of being a writer.
So what I would say there is as you're planning ahead, as you're planning your career, one of the things to keep in mind is you need to figure out who you are as a writer, what kind of writer you want to be: a really great worldbuilding writer, a thriller writer only, an erotica writer with really saucy plots and plot twists, a picture book writer, a nonfiction picture book writer, a person who does both fiction and nonfiction, you know, a person who writes across categories. Then, you have to kind of figure out how you want to build your platform, build your brand identity, and present yourself to readers. Is it, you know, you have a picture book persona but you're gonna write erotica under a pen name, for example? Hey, I've seen that dichotomy. People are called to write what they write and sometimes, it doesn't fit neatly into the same persona.
So, it's kind of these decisions of what I want to write, who I want to write for, and what my sort of stamp, my identifier is as a writer. You have to think about that when you're planning your next couple of projects. Do you write another picture book? Do your write two eroticas in a row and then you want to jump over to something else? These are kind of questions that an agent or a publisher is able to help with. But you also could make it more of a collaborative experience. For example, talk to your agent and say, "What do you see me doing? What areas do you see me going into? These are my interests, you know. Can you help me plan my next couple of steps?"
Ideally, the thing that I really want to impress upon you in this very short video is the idea that your ideas should be infinite. There's not just one idea in the world for you to write. The writers that do tend to do best overall from a career standpoint are the ones where ideas are a dime a dozen. They're just looking for the most interesting execution of those ideas. They're looking to build and twist an interesting experiences for their readers and interesting characters for their readers to sink into. They like to learn how to plot in a compelling way. The idea, almost, is secondary to the toolbox of tools, and skills, and craft elements that they pick up along the way.
The writers that I see do poorly in this regard are the ones that cling to one idea and they've had a manuscript that they've had for 10, 15, 20. Twenty-seven is probably the longest I've ever personally heard, years, where they are kind of whittling on the same manuscript for a very long time and they're not thinking in this more global way of what other ideas do I want to pursue. Are there any other things that interest me? What can I make of myself as one writer who's sort of a conduit for ideas and stories? I think that thinking of not being entirely precious about the manuscript in front of you right now, that is what behooves writers when they open up and start thinking at the career level, not just at the manuscript level...so definitely food for thought.
My name is Mary Kole with Good Story Company. Here's to a good story.
I’ve taught thousands of writers, and now I am doing something bigger, more ambitious, and disruptive. I hope you join me. My entire career has been a study in mixing craft and industry knowledge, about helping writers hone their projects, but also providing insight into the biggest question of all: What’s next?
