2025 Writing Habits and Goals

I wanted to start 2025 by laying out my plan for the year. As many know, I am a full-time executive for a medical device company. 2025 will be my last full year doing this, and my number one mission for 2025 is not to look forward too fast. I need to continue to do a good job and earn my paycheck.

2024 was the foundation year in many respects. I’m still learning the craft, as I probably will do for the rest of my life. But, the one thing I undertook that benefited me the most was enrolling in the BookFox Academy. (link) In particular, there is one course on building better writing habits. In this video, John talks about setting up some things to help you make writing more regular. I will explain some steps I took away from this and show you these in action. You can be my accountability partner in 2025.

Set Goals:

In the course, John suggests setting daily, weekly, and monthly goals that are totally within your control. For example, a bad goal is to get a short story accepted for publication. A good goal is to write for X amount of minutes every day for a week and a month. A bad goal is to get 30 new followers on social media; an excellent goal is to interact with targeted people on social media three times a week.

Give yourself something to reward achieving your goals:

Make accomplishing your goals something that is rewarded. Nothing big, but if you hit all your daily goals, maybe allow yourself an indulgence, like watching a show on TV or playing your favorite video game for a while. If you hit your weekly goals, that reward should be bigger, and for a monthly goal, wow, a new car (just kidding). But make them something that will motivate you to hit those goals.

Pick a time to write that is consistent:

This is more me than John. He talks about squeezing in time whenever you can, but I need a schedule.

Pick habits that tell you it is time to write:

Always put on your favorite hat, play your favorite music playlist, and avoid distractions when writing.

So, with all of this in mind, here are my 2025 writing goals:

I’ve shared with all of you my decision to self-publish, so for me, it isn’t just about writing; it is about setting up a business, too. My plan for 2025 will include things that are probably more specific to self-published authors, but even traditionally published authors need to build a market.

Writing Goal #1: Work on my novel for 75 minutes each day, five days a week. I’ll do this in a series of uninterrupted writing sprints of 25 minutes, each with a five-minute rest (not doing other work stuff, not checking email, not going through social media). I do this with either classical music or opera music in the background. I wear my ‘trademark’ thinking cap. I also do this starting at 6 a.m. every day before my job starts at 8 a.m.

Writing Goal #2: Write a short story for 75 minutes a day, two days a week. I am trying to keep my short story game going. I accomplish this by using the same ‘quirks’ I use in Writing Goal #1: music, hat, sprints, and breaks.

Social Goal #1: Post three social media posts a week. As a self-published author, I must build a team and fanbase. To make a team, I need to find it first. That is the purpose of my social media presence (and these blog posts). I talk about my early interactions with other authors when they were starting their careers. I’m hoping to offer that kind of experience to readers. So much so that they will help spread my work.

Social Goal #2: Interact on social media forums five times a week to build my author network. I want to get to know others who can help promote my work and teach me things.

Social Goal #3: Get one new subscriber to my newsletter, weekly. This goes against what BookFox says: I have no control, but I believe this one works well in telling me if my other social strategies are working.

Business Goal #1: Spend 30 minutes a day learning about Self-publishing. If you are going traditional, you can set a goal of learning about the traditional publishing industry. YouTube has been a godsend for information. Working on my website, as does setting up a calendar, counts here, too. Anything that helps the business side of writing work better. I suspect that this will take up to 4 hours per day when I do this full-time if what other indie authors tell me is true.

Learn Goal #1: Spend at least 30 minutes a day learning about the craft of writing. This is reading books about it, watching videos about it, and spending time in the writing community (I count my writing group time in this space).

Read Goal #1: Spend at least 30 minutes a day reading. Focus on your genre, but don’t be afraid to branch out occasionally and read a classic. Read an adjacent genre (if you write fantasy, read sci-fi). But a good writer will not improve if he or she doesn’t read.

I also set two Yearly goals:

Goal 1: Attend two writer conferences per year

Goal 2: Attend two writing retreats per year. I’ll write another blog post in the future about this.

Every month, I create a calendar page that lists my daily, weekly, and monthly goals. Did I hit them? Where did I miss? I also list my rewards, which, to be honest, are kind of weak. I think I need to up my reward game. Do you reward yourself? What ideas could I use to make my goals worth attaining? Answer that in the comments or on social media.

If you read this all the way to hear, please like the blog post. If you interact with me, on here or social media, it helps me get to see more potential fans and people. Please don’t be shy or bashful. I won’t judge you and nobody else will either.