Here is my quick post to all of you, to prove that I am human, and talk about goals again.

You see, I really dropped the ball on some of those lofty goals I set last week.  Let’s take a quick look at them.

1. Update blog at least twice a week while working full time, three or four times while not.
2. Make at least three to five useful tweets per day.
3. Write at least 10,000 words over summer break.
4. Edit Sleight of Spirit for continuity and extraneous words over summer break.

There was a #5 but it didn’t pertain to vacation.  So here’s the breakdown:

1. This was a bit of a fail.  While there were three posts put up in that week, I hardly looked at the blog other than that, and I skipped Friday Fictioneers.  I hate skipping Friday Fictioneers, because it’s so much darn fun, but by the time I realized I had skipped it it was Saturday afternoon.

2. Yeah, not so much.  Being free of my computer meant that I kind of forgot twitter entirely, aside from being a place I could share the goofy shirts I see around my Korean town.

3. Destroyed.  In fact, I more than doubled this goal, I’m around 22k words for the week now.

4. Sort – of – fail.  You see, instead of doing this, I evaluated where I was in editing and decided that now was the time to hand Sleight of Spirit over to a few trusted (and botherable) first readers.  Thus, I’m waiting for them to finish so that I can take them to dinner and pick their brains about things to change.  So while I didn’t edit or anything, I did make progress.

And there you  have it.  Two half-fails, a more than double, and a “yeah, whoops, that didn’t happen.”

But you know what?  I’m flexible, and I’m still calling the week at a success.  Book 2 of the Cinereal Series is going to be about half-drafted, and the first interim book of The Athele Series has a really strong start.

And that’s the other part of goal-setting that you have to understand.  In those three types of goal, there are also subsets.  Rigid and Fluid.  

Rigid goals must be met, exactly as outlined.  Goals for work fall under this kind of sub set.  They are non-negotiable, they must be done.

Fluid goals can be changed as you get into them.  They are guidelines more than rules.

Sometimes some goals really take off for you, and you can go way beyond them.  Some goals just fall flat, and you have to sacrifice time and significant brain power to get them done.  The only failed goal I’m really kicking myself over is twitter, but I think it’s a matter of still not being accustomed to the platform as a marketing tool (even after what, nine months of membership?)  But hey, it’s not the end of the world, and I’m really happy to have made so much writing progress!

So what goals have you been flexible on lately?  Do you keep your goals rigidly, or fluidly?