5 Years: A Writer's Vision
Rephrasing this question changed my entire outlook
Hey y’all, it’s KimBoo! I’m an author and a podcaster who is also a librarian, text technology historian, and former I.T. project manager. I write about a lot of interesting things, I hope you agree! Please consider supporting me so I can keep throwing errata & etcetera into the Scriptorium!
For years and years at the start of January, my friends and I have subjected ourselves to the popular visualization practice of “imagine where you want to be in five years.”
We all know that as an aspirational goal, that vision is something that may or may not be realized. Most of the time, plans get derailed due to “Life Happens,” but despite that it has generally been a good exercise to work through. Looking past the immediate moment is a crucial step in planning how we spend our time and plan our days, weeks, months. It is very necessary.
After decades of a few hits and many misses, though, it feels mostly pro forma, something we do by rote at the start of every new year. Personally, my goal changes flavor but never substance: financial stability, owning my own home and a nice used car, moving out of Florida, getting another rescue dog or two. Basic shit, as they say, and while I’m closer to those goals than ever before, it’s still a work in progress.
This year, though, a new question hit me like a meteor, and has profoundly changed not just my outlook but my plans and my goals. This question gets at the heart of being a writer and a storyteller, and digs its hook deep into my soul:
What do I want to have had written in five years?
What of my own work do I want on the shelf behind my desk? What stories do I want people talking about? Which of my (very many) story ideas are the ones I want to know are completed when look back in five years?
When the question first appeared in my mind, it was so shocking I had to sit in silence for a few minutes. I have, of course, given thought to what I want to publish, and what I want my author career to look like over the years. That part isn’t new.
What this question tears away though is that layer of “should” that has always weighed down my goals. I should write to market. I should publish X number of books a year. I should write X amount of words every day/week. I should focus on this or that metric, this or that trend, this or that income.
The difference is that all those “shoulds” are external goals, while asking myself what future!me wants to have written when I look back is internal.
This isn’t saying those external goals are not important if you want to make a living as a writer. Those “shoulds” are solid advice which have served many, many successful authors well over the years.
But in the end, for me at least, the question “Where do you want to be in five years?” rests on those externalities. It doesn’t speak to me as a storyteller.
What do I want to have had written in five years?
I now have a short list of the six writing projects which are the most important to me as a writer. These are the ones I want to see on my bookshelf in five years. They will not be perfect (nothing is!) and they might not be exactly what I envision today, but they will exist. I am writing them now, today, and tomorrow.
Whatever else I want to do and need to do must fit in around them. Whatever goals I have in other areas of my life have to make room for those stories.
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