Business Post: Goals - Ego, Craft and Money (Patreon)

One of the things I brush upon, when building ones goals (beyond making sure your goals are SMART); and especially for overall career goals; is to work out what is (or was) most important to you. For me, I utilize a three bucket idea for writing career goals, and since I was asked to detail them, here you go.

The three writing career goals can be broken into:

- Ego

- Craft

- Money

Now, I use the bucket analogy because if you take yourself (your time, your energy, your money) and consider it a liquid, you can choose to proportion your goals or focus to any one of these areas. Sometimes, if you fill one or the other up sufficiently, you might even achieve it.

Or maybe not. There's a lot of luck in this business. But it's good to consider which of these three are most important and how you're pouring yourself into them.

So what are they?

Money

Money goals are the easiest to cover, so I'll start here. 

For those individuals where money is the main focus, craft and ego are secondary; the choices they make when deciding what to do in their career will be based around what pays. This does NOT mean they are bad writers, or any other silly value judgments. A focus on this goal basically means the writer wants to get paid for their craft and it's highly important.

These writers could / do take on jobs writing - perhaps not fiction, like technical writing or journalism or writing blogs and articles for others or resumes or what not. It could also mean they are happy enough to do ghostwriting (low ego!) or are willing to chase trends or write in genres the might not even read automatically (erotica, mystery, romance, etc.). 

If your goal is money, if you pour yourself into chasing money - what you write, when you write, how you write matters less. So, 

Remember, this is relative. All of us want to get paid, but if money is your primary focus, getting paid is what is most important.

Craft

Craft goals are almost the polar opposite of money goals, in that the writer cares - very deeply - about what they write. This might be due to religions or beliefs (no sex, no romance, no killing!); it could be a desire to push themselves. It could also be much more personal - they have a story that has to come out.

Memoirs and autobiographical writers fall in here. Sure, they want to get paid, but just as much, they have a story to tell. A family history that has to be noted down, events that only they ever saw noted. Journals are kept, because it's important to them - and maybe, they'll publish and see it in-print but the act of publishing is more important than the money that might come from it. 

Writers who push craft might also be newer writers, those who aren't certain of their ability. They want to get paid (eventually); but right now, they want to write a good book. A damn good one, or at least better than what they can do. Don't forget that you can change what your goal is, and sometimes (often), we need to focus on craft too, to become good writers.

Craft focused writers might also just care (deeply) about the specific genre or sub-genre they're writing in. It could also mean utilizing specific tropes, specific characters or sexualities, that might impar their ability to make money or their ego goals; but because it's important to them, they do it.

Last thing - some craft writers do it because the act of writing, of pushing their skills, is fun. It's always worth remembering that.

Ego

Ego goals don't revolve around what you write, but the external validation one gets from writing. Ego goals feed into internal validation, obviously, but in the way I envision them, it's all about what you can get from others.

Ego goals can include things like the act of publishing a book (or even writing it) and having the bragging rights of saying 'I wrote and published a book', to receiving awards or grants or being listed in literary magazines. It might include getting invited to speak at conferences or do library or school visits, or earning the Nobel Prize. Or being taught in a school.

There are nothing wrong with these goals, but if it's something that is important to you, you need to list these goals down specifically. Because, frankly speaking, certain paths (traditional publishing specifically) might offer you a better chance of achieving those goals. At least, currently.

That might change, is changing, but tradpub does offer certain advantages that indie publishing just can't. Mostly due to the difference in resources and distribution methods.

Three Buckets and Changes

Remember, these are just goal settings and buckets for you to think of what is most important to you and, thus, how much energy you want to pour into each. Sometimes, you're going to have to adjust your expectations to meet your utlimate goal. For example, trad pub can occasionally make you a ton of money, but it's almost always slow and you might have to compromise on your craft. 

There's also nothing to stop you from altering each of these as you go along. Money was (still is to some extent) a factor in my writing goals, but it's much diminished. I'm more interested in craft and (to some extent) ego goals now. Other writers might wish to hit certain ego goals (awards, being taught in school, etc.) and later realise they really, really need to hit those money goals. 

As your goals change, what you write, how you write, when you write might change too. There's nothing wrong with that. Or different.

But you do need to think about them, and decide. And understand that those decisions make a difference, in what goals you might achieve or might be achievable.

Barring a momentous stroke of luck.