Finishing and future plans

This is my plan for finishing the current novel, Blood of the Mist.

This is the lead-in for my plan for 2008 which is to set weekly writing goals to move me toward being a published author. Most of those goals will be to write 5,000 words a week. A very do-able goal, I think. Of course, in November I will write much more because of NaNo. If I'm on vacation, I'll probably write less. That's why I'm not just setting a blanket goal for the year. I think this weekly plan makes more sense. Most weeks 5K, but individual weekly goals to be set to accommodate any scheduling weirdness. I am also not sure how writing goals will mesh with times when I'm planning the next book or short story, since I've never set out to really push myself to be a prolific writer and start getting things out in the world, submitted and published (I hope). I also don't know how rewrites will fit in the goals/word count. Maybe when I am rewriting, I will have to set goals to rewrite/edit a certain number of pages? Or should I be planning to be working on the polishing phases of one story while I'm also writing a new one? I really don't know how all of this should/will work, but I plan to experiment until I find a system that works for me. I am hoping that by leaving myself some flexibility in the goals, I will find a way to make it all blend together and work.

Of course, we're starting right out with scheduling weirdness because of all the December holidays and parties and company and shopping and wrapping, etc. It's not 2008, though, so I think this is okay. I plan to take this weekend off, but I have decided I don't want to take the entire month of December off. I am afraid I will lose my momentum. After this weekend, I am setting a goal to write 2K a week for December (weeks will run Monday-Sunday). I think that, coupled with 5K a week in January, should bring me to the end of a decent sized rough draft. It will be close to 100K, which I believe is a pretty good size for a novel. And when I do the first rewrite, I know I'll end up adding things in, and that should bring it to between 100K and 125K, which is exactly what I'm aiming for.