Stick to your goals

The last couple weeks I've been really busy, and consequently, a little stressed and overwhelmed. I won't go into great detail of my day, but what I realized is as an author you have to make small goals. If you say you are going to write for six hours every day, when you haven't even been writing one, you will feel overwhelmed from day one and give up.So make small goals. I had to get myself back in the habit of writing, so I said I would write 200 words a day. 200 became 300, then 400. What I found was that if I made a small goal, by the time I met my goal I was warmed up and wanted to keep writing. Sometimes I'd get 700 or 800 words. Also, make sure you aren't over extending yourself- as in, trying to do too many things at once or help too many people. Learn to say no. People think just because you are home you are free. But if you're a full time writer, and are working then you aren't free. J. K. Rowling has an excellent quote: Be ruthless about defending your writing time. Even SHE has to fight for her writing time, because people are always and will always try to schedule other things for you during that time.Establish your writing time, treat it like a real job that you can't just take off or call in whenever you want, and stick to your guns! And make sure your daily goals for writing is something you know you can do- even if it is just writing one sentence. I have found so many times that I will tell myself to only write one sentence and I'll be done, but once I write that I don't want to stop, and end up writing a couple paragraphs or even a page!I know that doesn't sound like much, but the way to walk a thousand miles is one step at a time.