My Goals... Where are you with yours?

I have been looking at my goals and trying to see them with a fresh eye. My personal number one goal is to put God back in control of the writing side of my life. That being said, here is what I have come up with to propel my writing and to push myself outside the comfort zone.

1. Research, write, revise, and polish an article for a children's magazine for August, October, and December. The target magazines will be Jack and Jill with a health focus, Highlights for a nonfiction focus, and American Girl also a nonfiction focus. The guidelines and themes will help me to pick a topic, and one topic idea may be able to be slanted and reworked for two of the targets depending.
           
2. Write a short fiction story for a children's online magazine and submit according to guidelines or themes by December 2011. The target for this will be Stories for Children's Magazine.

3. Marketing for The Cancer Prayer book will include posting to the books new blog and using social networks to promote the book on a continuous basis. Networking, marketing, social media, blogging, and making contacts as a blog editor will help me to reach more connections that will lead to more paying writing assignments. I have a few small paying assignments but much of what I do is still on a nonpaying basis. My goal here is to market myself and concentrate on gaining one steady source of income by December 2011.

These goals are general but I am narrowing the focus and listing on a daily basis specific actions that will move me towards each of the goals by the targeted date. I am also making a list of the things that distract me from my goals and I am posting them at my desk as a warning label. How are your goals coming for 2011? If you have a great idea to get a fresh outlook, please feel free to share.

These goals don't specifically list critique groups, writing clubs, or other ways a writer connects to other writers for support but feel free to include those ideas in you goal planning. My weekly goal/marketing plan starts every Sunday so July 3 will be the first fresh plan for the second half of 2011. Wish me luck and I will do the same for you.