What's your goal as a writer?

[Tzara]

I've been thinking about this question myself a lot lately. I'm not entirely sure what my answer is. I suppose I could say something like "it'd be kind of fun to win the Nobel Prize in Literature," but that isn't really a goal, at least not a realistic one. So I pose the question in a realistic sense. What is/are your realistic goal(s) as a writer?

I would expect this to change over time. For example, before I sent anything out, my goal was "get some poems accepted for publication." Well, notched that one, so no longer a goal, exactly. I, of course, still want to get accepted when I send things out, but I've had enough success there that it is no longer the primary goal. I'm reasonably confident I can do it if I want to. Similarly, TRM probably doesn't anymore have the goal of "get book published," as he's already done that. Twice. He might now have a goal like "get Knopf to publish a collection of my poems" or "win the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry" or "write so well that Kim Addonizio will jump into my bed."

Oh, wait. That last one is one of mine.

Anyway, the question is what's your current goal as a writer? Note also that I say writer, not poet. Since this is the Poetry Forum, I assume most responses will be about poetry, but they don't need to be. If your primary goals relate more to prose, tell me about that as well.

I'll be back in a bit to lay bare mine own overly aspirational soul. Or maybe show how base and shallow are my dreams and desires.

Uh, yeah. I'm snoopy.

 

[unapologetic]

See, I have professional writing goals and personal poetry goals.

Professional: to have an article published in a refereed journal so I can add another section to my cv. I'm working on some research that might yeild the kind of data about which I could write such an article.

Personal: to get a poem published somewhere other than the kinds of places that take anyone.

Long term: I've always cherished a little dream about being a Pulitzer Prize winning playwright... Even wrote a whole play once.

More immediately, I want to get through the three classes that stand between me and the degree on which I'm working.

 

[Tzara]

OK. My goals.

These have changed over time. My original reason for trying to write poems here was that I thought I would maybe learn something about how to read poetry. I still would kinda like to get an MA in English Lit and I've always been a little dense about interpreting poems. I'm not sure, though, that writing them has helped.

Lately, I've been trying to write prose more than poems, so one goal is to write a "real" story (meaning something of normal story length—not flash) and get that accepted for publication. That's probably my most immediate goal.

I want to get something (poem, prose, don't matter) accepted by one of the "major" print journals—something like Ploughshares, or Prairie Schooner, or Poetry.

Finally, I want to write something that I'm still happy with a year later. I'm not entirely sure I've done that yet.

 

[darkerdreamer]

OK. My goals.

These have changed over time. My original reason for trying to write poems here was that I thought I would maybe learn something about how to read poetry. I still would kinda like to get an MA in English Lit and I've always been a little dense about interpreting poems. I'm not sure, though, that writing them has helped.

Lately, I've been trying to write prose more than poems, so one goal is to write a "real" story (meaning something of normal story length—not flash) and get that accepted for publication. That's probably my most immediate goal.

I want to get something (poem, prose, don't matter) accepted by one of the "major" print journals—something like Ploughshares, or Prairie Schooner, or Poetry.

Finally, I want to write something that I'm still happy with a year later. I'm not entirely sure I've done that yet.

I was pondering the question of the thread when you first posted, scary that two of your goals are almost identical to mine.

My only two current goals as a writer:

1) Finish any "full-length" piece of prose. Just one would do.

2) Write any piece that I don't despise upon reading for a third time.

 

[champagne1982]

Well, you've posed this on the very day I've given myself as a deadline to begin to amass and send out many poems to several different journals and magazines (ezines are lumped in here).

My short term goal, is to publish enough printed poetry and prose pieces that I'll be able to apply to the National Arts Council of Canada for a grant.

Longer in scope, once that has been acheived, I'd like to win a grant.

With that money, I'd simply be thrilled to write a collection of shorts and/or poems that would be print worthy.

 

[WickedEve]

At one time, I did have tentative plans for my poetry. But goals change with life, health, and children. Sadly, poetry is less important now. I just don't have the time to pursue my goals.

 

[bogusbrig]

I just write and experiment and I don't really have plans beyond that, though it would be nice to have someone with influence in the literary world say they 'got' one of my more way out pieces but that is a pipe dream. I love reading poetry, any sort of poetry but I don't enjoy writing what people say is 'good poetry' so I'm going to have to settle for writing rubbish and claim to be a misunderstood genius. Being a misunderstood genius is a far better reason for being rejected than writing rubbish. My other goal is simply to read my work at poetry readings and turn dull turgid affairs into entertaining drunkfests which I have managed to do on occassion. This is why I try to write poetry with more than one voice and different rhythms and fairly long. I've noticed how an excellent short poem on the page can die at a poetry reading, the poem is over before it begins and the before the audience has had time to tune in.

Hmmm. I guess I am saying, I mainly write for the beer!

 

[AChild]

Write "publish me" on my tombstone in graf, then maybe I'll get some of my mind into your newspaper.

I want bound books with my name on them if only for my own amusement. Shelves and hallways, I'll dance down like a soul train line.

 

[annaswirls]

My goals as a writer:

to write poetry that generates a reaction, not just an image, but a physical reaction or some sort

I have ambitions to be published, but I am coming to the conclusion that it must not be that important because I rarely submit anything anymore.

I long for the spirituality I find in bodyless human connection, like that found between artist and observer, perhaps I am a fool, but there is something so powerful about being fearless... putting myself out there, and finding that my exposed self reached another self who was also brave enough to open up... It is everything to me. I guess getting published is just a way of trying to reach more selves. But how often does that happen? I am not sure.

I did start to edit a group of poems for a chapbook but it is lying in wait. It would be nice to have a book I suppose. Something to hold.

I constantly struggle with editing. I do not want every line to make literal sense. I hate perfectly polished poetry, I want to shake it until the varnish cracks off and I can see the poet inside instead of some glossy reflection.

But I find that so many places will only publish work that follows a formula. I went through a workshop and it was like no one even waited for the poem to sink in, they dug in on fixing fixing fixing it without letting it breathe in their soul for a moment, and I wonder if editors and readers all do the same thing. I am not talking about grammar and just plain awful lines, I am talking about the whole of the poem and where parts fit in.

So I guess I want to maybe somehow perhaps eek stay true to my voice but be smart enough to know what works, brave enough to stand my ground. My dream is to find people of a like mind, who enjoy reading my work with all of it's imperfections, and allow me to see their imperfections, weakness, beauty, real real emotion, what lies underneath the flower

 

[annaswirls]

At one time, I did have tentative plans for my poetry. But goals change with life, health, and children. Sadly, poetry is less important now. I just don't have the time to pursue my goals.

you are young
your children are young
you have a long long lifetime to reach your goals and girl, I know whatever they are, you will get them and I am not just kissing your pretty ass.

I am amazed you have time to write at all and I value your talent, your voice, you are one of a kind woman and your voice is strong, real, intelligent, natural.

I hope we will be grey haired grannies together still writing poetry into our 80's.....why not 90?

 

[Angeline]

I love communication and I love the arts. Writing allows me to express myself by combining those two loves. I used to care more about publishing and although I have been published in a few places I feel pretty good about ("hard" places to be accepted), right now I have too much other stuff going on to focus on that. I want to grow as a writer always and I want to explore other forms of writing besides poetry, especially drama. I can't imagine a day going by when I don't want to write something and that makes me happy. I want to keep feeling that way.

 

[christabelll]

Really Good Questions

At first I was so flabbergasted that I could possibly maybe turn a phrase that had my teachers looking at me with interest in theirs eyes that I didn't have any goals at all. Except to keep that look in their eyes of speculation and perhaps mentoring.
One teacher did that for me. Taught a method of free association that just gets me flying down the pages...

Then it became just figure out how to construct a sentence eh? I have so much written material that I would NEVER let anyone read.
Then over the past few years, it became write a book. I've written two. published? no. Not brave enough, and they haven't seen the red ink of a trusted editor yet either.
I simply am not brave enough to submit to real publishing houses yet.

The next goal is to titilate and educate
The next goal is to let others besides friends and family read selected pieces and get a feel for the True opinions that have nothing to lose in being honest. Not that my friends would lose me merely they don't want to hurt my feelings.

Next is to write my third book and do a compilation of poetry and prose I have already mentioned in another thread here.

Never did care if I won the pulitzer.

 

[Liar]

Dude, I gots me goals, me.

For poetry: Not many. It would be nice to be recognized somewhere and have some stuff in print, but I can live whithout it. Poetry is my mental, linguistic and rhethoric stairmaster, more than anything else.

For poetry 2.0: That's poetry in a context, which I think song lyrics are. I'm in a band. I want to be an international rock star, so I can get the finest groupies and the finest weed.

For fiction: I want to write plays and have them preformed. I write plays and have them preformed. I'd like to write and have a published novel to my name, if I didn't have to sit down and type the damn thing.

For non-fiction: I want to write stuff that people assume is worth the effort to read, because they see that I wrote it. I do that now, but not in a field that interrests me.

 

[eagleyez]

My goal with Poetry is to just write poems. I have had a good number of poems published in Academic anthologies and Literary maazines, but that is not what motivates me to write them.

My goal with fictive writing, which I am always doing, is to get a book published, sell the rights to a movie producer, contribute to the screeplay of said project, go to the premier of the film, and just dig the fact that the constuct started in my fevered mind. I think that would be a gas.

 

[TheRainMan]

My goal with Poetry is to just write poems. I have had a good number of poems published in Academic anthologies and Literary maazines, but that is not what motivates me to write them.

My goal with fictive writing, which I am always doing, is to get a book published, sell the rights to a movie producer, contribute to the screeplay of said project, go to the premier of the film, and just dig the fact that the constuct started in my fevered mind. I think that would be a gas.

if that happens, bark it out.

i will be there, no matter where it is.

unlike EE's goal with prose, which would be very lucrative financially, there are very few financial rewards these days in writing poetry, unfortunately. i am making money now with it, but it is not (nor will it ever be) enough to nourish the beaks that are open beneath my feeding hand.

so the prime motivation with poetry must be inside you . . . self-satisfaction . . . to write well and have that verified by accomplished strangers, and by publishers who are willing to put their money where their mouth is.

as Tzara said, since accomplishing what i started out to achieve -- first the publication of individual poems in journals that i respect, and then book publication, my goals have expanded.

right now, my goal is to get a collection eventually published by Copper Canyon, the press that i consider to be the top poetry publisher in the world (and Bill, notice where they are located ).

to do that will first require me to get further chapbooks and full collections published elsewhere, since they do not accept unsolicited manuscripts. basically, they have to come after you.

i am convinced if i can get them to read one, i can get them to take it . . . the chore is to get the manuscript itself open on an editor's desk there.

. . . i'm workin' on it.

 

[clutching_calliope]

.....

 

[TheRainMan]

I started writing because it was opener to getting laid.

Still is. (Is this a goal?)

damn straight it is.

write me something.

 

[clutching_calliope]

.....

 

[TheRainMan]

I've told you before....I don't think it'll reach that far no matter how big it is.

you could be wrong . . . that's been known to happen before, once or twice.

hey . . . PM me and tell me how the first issue's submissions were, Ms. Editor in charge of all things flashy.

 

[wildsweetone]

What's your goal as a writer?

to make time to write.

to share my writing with others.

 

[The_Fool]

I don't know anymore. I need to figure it out or give it up.

 

[sethp]

I'm going to write a best seller one day...and yes I will use a proofreader and editor for that project! lol

 

[Guest]

I don't have long term goals for anything. My attention span is nano seconds. For me to accomplish anything at all, I have to do short term goals. I'd like to do more story writing this year, but also, I'd like to successfully complete a 30/30 poem challenge. ▪ ▪ I'd like a score of 90 points or better on the 2007 Author's Survivor contest (I got 91 two years ago). ▪ ▪ And I'd like to see one of poems in print this year (which might happen in Bare Bones 10 this Spring/Summer).

 

[Tzara]

right now, my goal is to get a collection eventually published by Copper Canyon, the press that i consider to be the top poetry publisher in the world (and Bill, notice where they are located ).

I know. They produce beautiful books.

Graywolf Press does some pretty attractive books as well. Guess where they were founded?

Good luck on the goal, Mister. Just a matter of time, I think.

 

[Tzara]

I started writing because it was opener to getting laid.

Still is. (Is this a goal?)

I knew there was a reason I liked to attend poetry readings.