In my first year of freelance writing - and only eight months of it was full-time - I surpassed my financial goals as a writer. Here are my new writing goals, plus some New Year’s Resolutions tips for writers.

“Success is not an automatic function of individual talent,” says Malcolm Gladwell, author of Outliers: The Story of Success. “It’s bound up in so many other broader circumstantial, environmental, historical, and cultural factors.”

Your success as a freelance writer or novelist depends not only on your hard work, discipline, and goals - it’s also about your circumstances, lifestyle, and culture. That’s scary, because it’s both good and bad! If you’re lucky and the timing is right and the planets align, then you’ll experience more success as a writer. But, if fate conspires against you, then…you may not see your writing dreams come true.

But, lucky or not, you can set and achieve goals that bring you closer to getting published as a novelist or selling articles as a freelance writer. Check out my writing goals and these New Year’s Resolutions tips for writers - they’ll help you structure your goals, which will increase your chances of success. And, for more info on Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers: The Story of Success, click the book cover.

Writing Goals and New Year’s Resolutions Tips for Writers

1. Set financial goals. If you’re a freelance writer for magazines and websites, try setting financial goals. This writing goal worked really well for me last year, and I’ve set higher goals for the new year! This New Year’s resolution tip works best when writers are freelancing full or part-time, or motivated by money.

2. Break your financial goals into categories. As a full-time freelance writer, my goal is to earn $4,000 per month. I’ve broken that overall financial goal into smaller ones: a certain amount from my blogs, a certain amount from magazines and websites, and a certain amount from my articles on Suite101.

3. Pitch 3 new articles a week. I love writing for magazines, and my writing goal is to pitch three new article ideas every week. This New Year’s resolution tip works best when writers are freelancing full or part-time - but this time, money isn’t necessarily a factor.

4. Set a per word financial goal. Can you tell I’m determined to earn a living as a full-time freelance writer? I didn’t set a New Year’s Resolution goal for a per word rate, but I want to earn a minimum of $1 per word.  I will write for fifty cents a word in special circumstances (like for the first magazine that actually accepted my pitch and hired me to write an article!), but I’m discovering that some magazines pay $2 per word! Again, this New Year’s resolution tip works best when writers are motivated by money.

5. Set your blog or website goals. Another writing goal I have this year is to write one blog post a day. Since I have three blogs (Quips and Tips for Freelance Writers, Quips and Tips for Achieving Your Goals, and Quips and Tips for Couples Coping With Infertility), I see this goal as easy to achieve! There’s no shortage of stuff to write about. Make a checklist of your blog or website goals, because this New Year’s resolution tip works best when writers are motivated by checking things off their “to do” list.

6. Find one new writing market a week. I didn’t do this last year, but my writing goal this year is to contact a new magazine or website with a query every week. Last year, I kept pitching to magazines that never responded - and I’ve learned that after you’ve tried an email address more than ten times without a response, it’s probably a dead end!

7. Send 10 recycled queries a week. If I don’t hear back from an editor or publisher within three months, I consider that article idea up for grabs…and I send the query to a new magazine or website. If you’re a freelance writer, don’t let your older ideas go to waste! Keep cycling them through, and sooner or later someone will pick it up. Hopefully.

Fellow scribes, I encourage you to set New Year’s Resolutions that include writing goals. Post them where you can see them all the time, and remember that Malcolm Gladwell’s tip for success: you’ll need to log 10,000 hours of writing before you’ll become a successful writer.