A Different Way to Work with Writing Goals

Looking for qualities not quantities can shift your entire experience of goal setting

What’s new in my writing room: My latest novel, Last Bets, was selected in December for Kirkus Reviews' Top 100 Best Indie Books of the Year! Kirkus reviews thousands of indie books, and less than 1% receive a coveted starred review (which mine did). Of those, only 100 are selected across all genres for the “Best of” list. Kirkus is (to many) the Michelin Guide to industry book reviews. A star is like a Michelin three star award. A Best of is way beyond! I’m humbled, stunned, delighted. Grateful to all who helped me get here.

We’re still cleaning up from the holidays—how about you? It’s been brutal weather here in northern New England, an Arctic front plowing through with fierce winds and temps that make everyone shiver. Luckily, we got the Christmas tree down and mulching the flower beds outside before it could blow away. Ornaments, collected over years, are wrapped back in their tissue paper and boxed and stored. The window candles, which I love for our farmhouse at night, glowing into the dark, are finally put away too. I keep the evergreen and holly wreaths up for a while longer. Just holding onto the cheer, I guess.

But it’s pretty clear: an unpredictable northern winter has begun.

This coming year also promises to be anything but typical. I’m sensing it will present some new opportunities, for me at least, to practice staying the course with my writing life.

Different ways to consider new year’s goals

On January 1, as is our tradition, we invited a small group of three other couples to spend the day together. One of our favorite New Year’s activities is a creative one, since everyone in our close-friend group happens to be some kind of creative artist—musician, singer/songwriter, painter, craftsperson, actor, or writer.

We spread a table with newspaper then the huge array of magazine photos collected all year. Plus plain paper, glue sticks, scissors, adornments. We listen to music and we make collages that speak to our goals for the next twelve months.

This year, though, the group wanted to crowd around the fire and talk. So our dreams for the new year took a new form—sharing stories of what meant the most to us in 2024 and what we could afford to hope for in the next twelve months.

I used to be a rather linear goal-setter. I made lists of what I wanted, divided them by month, set a chartable course. Checked off what I accomplished, mourned what I didn’t.

Lately, though, life has given me a new look at goal-setting. I’m more after qualities, not quantities. I’m more interested in satisfaction than accomplishments.

Surprisingly, this new method gives me it all, and more.

Starting with images

Even though my friends didn’t join me in the annual collage making, I spent time at the collage table after they left that evening. I had purchased four blank journals (I buy them online from ZenArt, because they are inexpensive and sturdy and I don’t have to keep them beautiful or neat)).

Although I love making wall collages, I now prefer collaging the cover of these blank journals. Since I write in my journal every morning, I see the collage every morning too. It reminds me of what I’m dreaming of.

Here’s my definition of collage: a collection of images and objects that speak to the heart and mind and soul, consciously or not, and resonate in some way with what the maker wants to bring into their life.

But do we always know what we want to bring into our lives? And in these unpredictable times, is it even worth making an effort to set goals which could be shattered by circumstances we can’t foresee?

What we don’t know

I’ve made a New Year’s collage for my writing/creative life for dozens of years. Sometimes as covers to these journals or a writing notebook. Sometimes built on bulletin boards to evolve as I watch them over the next twelve months—images taken away, moved, replaced. Sometimes pasted on foamcore board or matboard or just an ordinary piece of paper. Sometimes laminated.

One time, after I’d lived with my New Year’s collage for a full year, enjoying how the images actually came true in my outer life, I cut them into wind ornaments, laminated and beribboned, added a date and an inspirational quote, then I hung them in our backyard orchard. Our wedding guests took one home as a memento of the day.

Another time, I create a mural on a wall of my art studio of all the collages I’d made and still had on hand.

What always strikes me—now that I use a different approach to goal setting via collage—is how powerful the images become. I choose images that speak of qualities, not specific things. Qualities of satisfaction, rather than number of books sold. Qualities of pleasure and rightness in my life, of balance and well-being, rather than getting published in this or that venue.

Goal-setting for specifics, for things, can trip me up. What if there’s something much better, and I’m limiting my options by being specific? What if the timing isn’t right? I remember a writer in my classes long ago who told the story of traditional goal-setting with his job. He did all the steps and visualized the heck out of the thing he wanted—and he got it. Only to realize, once he was in the job, that it wasn’t really what he wanted. The quality he sought wasn’t present in this particular arena.

Setting goals for qualities is a much more powerful way of creating my future. It also lets me work in tandem with the universe, if you will, and stay flexible to even better options that might come along. If I allow what I don’t know to be a player, I can focus on the feeling, the quality, rather than having to know exactly how it will manifest.

There’s magic in what we know about our futures, and there’s even more magic in what we don’t know.

Not just goals, but desired qualities of life

I have a strong component of my personality that adores making lists. Lists of what I want to accomplish, avoid, test or try out. I enjoy crossing things off lists. I enjoy the pressure a list creates.

But for my New Year’s goals, I approach it slightly differently, as I described above.

Yes, I can definitely state specific things I want to do in the next twelve months. Places to go, things to try, daily word count to achieve, writing to submit. But beyond that, what’s more vital to me now is how I feel about all of it. I focus on those inner qualities I know I want instead of outer goals I think I want.

You might call this mental health or spiritual health or just plain satisfaction with your life. That, to me, is what I make goals of now. My desired qualities of life.

So for the new year ahead, I asked myself that first:

At the end of this coming year, looking back on my twelve months, what would I most like to have done, experienced, accomplished, and tried?

What happens next

Last January, I starting the launch for my third novel, Last Bets. I had lots of hopes for this book. I felt it was my best so far (my agent agreed). I wanted to put as much effort and joy into its launch as I could.

I sought reviews and blurbs, I booked publicity tours on podcasts and social media, I planned a launch party, I set up pre-orders, I built a street team of friends to help me. These were the specific steps I could take that were in my control. But mostly, I spent a few days on my collage.

I tried to express, with the images I selected, the ease and joy of this new book releasing into the world. How it manifested a long-held dream of writing about female friendships and female ambition. I chose pictures that showed the qualities I hoped for with this release:

• joy

• satisfaction

• being proud of my efforts

• touching readers

• being well received in the world

I did this from a very intuitive place. If an image spoke to me, I used it in some way in the collage. I trusted that the nonverbal part of me would know better than any words I could find.

The collage helped me transition from the great effort of producing a book, the writing, revising, working with an editor and cover designer, seeing the book come into final form, to its journey out into the world to be shared it with readers. I was creating a shuttle run between two separate planets, in a way. So the collage was my translation, my attempt to cross over from writing to marketing, but without the soul-suck that marketing could become.

The essence of the collage, as I discovered after it was finished, was about having plenty of love and support for the process of launching the book.

Sure, I could’ve been specific about my goals for the launch. Yes, I wanted my book to being included in a “Best of” list, to be a bestseller on Amazon, to garner plenty of online reviews, to win awards. Those definitely were hopes and dreams, but my collage explored the qualities behind those accomplishments.

A year later, looking back, the novel achieved all that and more. I couldn’t have imagined it being chosen by Kirkus Reviews for its Best of 2024 list. Kirkus is the Michelin Guide of the publishing industry, to me. I would’ve fallen quite short on imagining such a high goal.

By focusing on the quality of intense satisfaction, I realized both the inner and the outer dream. Everything has come true.

Randomity

Working with inner qualities works a whole lot better, in my experience, than just making specific outer goals. Realistically, we can’t control outer life all that much anymore—too much can happen without any warning, upsetting plans. But if we focus on how we want to feel about it, that is something we can control.

I want to give a shout out here to

Jennifer Louden

who writes a brilliant Substack and many books on the subject of finding satisfaction in the creative life. I’ve learned a lot from her over the year about the value of randomity.

Time and again, I hear from my circle of friends how accurately these randomly-created New Year collages manifest so accurately. At our New Year’s collage party in past years, as they let themselves choose images that were not consciously a thing they wanted, but an image that somehow touched them, it’s not usually evident why the image satisfies them at some deep level. It’s only later that they learn its meaning and importance.

Looking ahead

The opening photo in this post is my collage table post-party, with my stack of collaged journals in process. I saw a theme emerging as I worked on each of them (there are four so far).

For this coming year, my emerging goal is learning. To become a student again, to learn new things in both my art and writing. I saw this as I let the gathering of images for my collages be random, completely intuitive. I couldn’t yet clearly see anything for the next year, because my book launch was off the table.

So I let myself gather and arrange and I didn’t analyze it until a week or so had passed. I could see the choices were surprising—and richer than my conscious mind could’ve imagined. I can’t wait to see how they manifest.

The collages have already spurred me to a first step, though: I applied for an advanced course in working on a short-story collection. Maybe my 2025 goal starting to speak?

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Your Weekly Writing Exercise

Ask yourself these questions about your next twelve months:

1. What specific goals do I have in mind for my year ahead?

2. Is there something in my creative life that I need or long to do that I haven’t yet done?

3. If I were to describe the feeling I’d love to end my next year with, what words come to mind?

Collect images from Unsplash or Pinterest or other online sites. Or comb through magazines and tear out strips of color or shape or photos that appeal to you in some way.

It’s not important to know why these images fascinate you. Let yourself be drawn to them without knowing.

Arrange your images in some way that pleases you. Use a bulletin board or wall board or paper or table top. Allow yourself the week to study the images, add or subtract, rearrange.

When you feel satisfied, glue them into place on a board or paper. Laminate if you wish. Then post your collage somewhere you can watch its meaning evolve for the rest of the new year.

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Shout Out!

A hearty shout out to these writing friends and former students who are publishing their books! I encourage you to pre-order or order a copy to show your support of fellow writers and our writing community.

(If you are a former student and will publish soon (pre-orders of your book are available now), or have in the past two months, email mary[at]marycarrollmoore[dot]com to be included in a future Shout Out! I’ll keep your listing here for two months.)

Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew, The Release: Creativity and Freedom after the Writing Is Done (Skinner House), October release

Robert Johns, The Fighters: A Trilogy (River Grove Books), October release

Morgan Baylog Finn, The Gathering: Poems (Finishing Line Press), November release

Ed Orzechowski, Becoming Darlene: The Story of Belchertown Patient #4952 (Levellers Press), November release

Mary Beth Spray, Imprint: A Woman’s Journey from Trauma to Freedom (Beaver’s Pond Press), December release

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I’m a lifelong artist, and I love to inspire and support other creative folk, which is why I write this weekly newsletter. My goal with these posts is to help you strengthen your writing practice and creative life so it becomes more satisfying to you.

I’m also the author of 15 books in 3 genres. My third novel, Last Bets (Riverbed Press), was published in April, after becoming an Amazon bestseller during pre-orders. My second novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue (Riverbed Press), was published in October 2023 also and became an Amazon bestseller and Hot New Release from pre-orders. For twelve years, I worked as a full-time food journalist, most notably through my weekly column for the Los Angeles Times syndicate. My writing-craft book, Your Book Starts Here, won the New Hampshire Literary Awards “People’s Choice” in 2011 and my first novel, Qualities of Light, was nominated for PEN/Faulkner and Lambda Literary awards in 2009. I’ve written Your Weekly Writing Exercise every Friday since 2008.