Challenge Yourself to Set a Long Goal

31-Day Ninja Writer Challenge 2019: Day Eleven

Shaunta Grimes
The Every Day Novelist
3 min readMay 11, 2019

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I know that a lot of you are planning on giving NaNoWriMo a go this year. And some of you, if you finish your novel, want to self-publish it at least in part because it’s considerably faster than the molasses-slow traditional publishing process.

There’s this feeling sometimes that we have to slam out a novel and get it on Amazon as fast as humanly possible.

I want to make a case today for looking further into the future.

Here’s a quote from a great article written by author Hugh Howey:

My plan was to write two novels a year for ten years before I ascertained whether or not I had a chance of making this work. . . . If you set a long term plan like this, and stick with it, you will succeed. Because you’ll find yourself in the top 0.1% of aspiring writers. 99.9% of your colleagues will drop out before they finish their plan. But you’ll outwork them.

I love that.

What he’s saying here is that if you set a long game goal for yourself and stick with it, you’ll win simply by virtue of working harder than everyone else.

You’ll win, because you’re still there.

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Shaunta Grimes
The Every Day Novelist

Learn. Write. Repeat. Visit me at ninjawriters.org. Reach me at shauntagrimes@gmail.com. (My posts may contain affiliate links!)