Having Vision

The Lipstick Girls: Rose by Bobbye Terry

Welcome to our bi-weekly posts from guest columnist, Bobbye Terry. This week she offers useful tips for us to vision our author careers right now. We’re curious to hear your tips too! Share your thoughts with us! Thanks! {PS. If you’d like to be a guest columnist at Writer’s Fun Zone, read how to do that here.}

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What would it feel like if suddenly you couldn’t see? How would you know where you were going and which way was the right way? Sure those who are blind learn to adapt to the loss of vision, but they adapt by replacing the visual cues with other ones that become, in essence, their new eyes.

Everyone needs to learn what the correct path is for them. Think of that correct path as your vision. Your vision is yours, not your parents’ or your sibling’s, not your spouse’s or significant other’s. You may share elements of that vision with others around you, but your personal vision will always vary to some extent. It’s solely yours.

Just as the road from your house to work or any other destination, doesn’t stop outside your front door, your vision doesn’t stop with what you plan to accomplish today, or tomorrow or even during the next week or month. You need to set in your mind a map of what your path will be in easily digested segments, by week, month, quarter, year, three years. The map should be updated regularly, just like your GPS sends out updates.

A good vision starts with a statement of your goal. It should be short, concise, have a deadline date, be achievable but not easy and be readily remembered. It is there to remind you what your personal jackpot is.

I mentioned this once before, but one of the most memorable vision statements in history was John F. Kennedy’s, in which he clarified that the U.S. would not buckle to the power of other countries. He used one program, the space program, to signify the intent that the country could succeed in anything all its citizens put their minds to:

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too….

So what’s your core vision statement? Think about what you’re trying to achieve. If it’s that you want to be a N.Y. Times Bestselling author, that may a bit too much of a stretch for a three-year goal. Remember: this is not about wishing but achieving. So, what’s your short-term objective? Finishing a manuscript for a novel? Finding an agent? Finding a publisher? Simply to get published? To indie publish? To have hundreds or thousands of people read your work? Each of you will have a slightly different answer.

Fill in the blanks:
In three years I will ________________ and then plan to set my goal to achieve ____________in the following three years.

After you have done that, set up shorter term goals. What will you do each quarter to achieve that three-year goal? Then what will you do each month to achieve the quarter-goal. From there, what will you do each week? You can have a daily goal, but I find weekly goals work better because I can analyze my results and then plan for the next week depending on my weekly progress.

If by nature you are by a visual person, setting up a vision board to display your plans and posting it in your work area can help. All it takes is a piece of poster board or a cork board and a bunch of pictures you collect from magazines, etc, to represent your goals.

Wordle: Bobbye Terrye Vision

OR you can make a Wordle picture of your goals and vision statement. I have made one comprised of the words from this blog so you get an idea what that looks like.

Go to my blog to see: www.BobbyeTerry.Blogspot.com. Click on the link and it will make the word picture larger. {Editor’s note: I posted in a small version of Bobbye’s Wordle vision here.}

I’d like to know what you folks think about vision. Please comment.

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Bobbye Terry writes under three names, her own and two pseudonyms. Here latest works are ROSE, a romantic comedy, written as Bobbye Terry, WITCHY WOMAN OF THE DOWNS, next week’s magical erotic short story, written as Daryn Cross and released by Turquoise Morning Press in honor of the Kentucky Derby and SOUL PATROL, co-written as Terry Campbell. You can find her at www.DarynCross.com, www.BobbyeTerryRomance.com and www.TerryCampbell.com.