Ratika Deshpande
When I first found my calling as a writer, I imagined myself writing novels. A couple of years later, I thought I’d write collections of short stories. Today, I mostly write articles and essays, although I’m again entertaining the idea of publishing books. I’ll probably have a different writing goal in a few years.
To some, this might sound like I have no direction. However, I’ve found that questioning my goals has actually given me not just direction but also, at times, a map to follow. My writing practice became more focused and productive, and I wasted less time trying to do things my heart wasn’t in. I’ve thus come to believe that we all must stop and question what we want to achieve as writers.
Why do you have the goals you do?
Here’s a quick exercise: make a list of all your writing goals—writing a serialised romance, for example, or a memoir of your school days, or a paid newsletter.
Now ask yourself: Why do you want to do each of these things? What do they mean to you?
More importantly, are these your goals, or goals that others have/had which you feel you should have too? Do you have these goals because you think achieving them will give you permission to call yourself a writer?
The intention isn’t to give up our goals, but to instead ponder whether we actually want to do these things. I’d imagined myself writing novels because that’s what I thought writers did. I didn’t actually have a story to tell; I just wanted to write. I moved to short story collections because I’d internalised, through online discourse, that (literary) fiction was somehow superior than other genres, and I looked down on nonfiction because my father’s shelf was filled with marketing and business titles that I had no interest in.
It was only after discovering Ruskin Bond that I learned that you could write a book full of delightful small essays about rain and plants and walks in the market—everyday things I loved doing but never imagined could be writing material! I can trace my style and my subsequent goals and approaches to this discovery at 15. I might not have written so much had this book not made me question what I wanted to do as a writer.
Unless we’re clear on our whys, our goals can misdirect us, even hold us back. Think of how futile my writing practice would have been if I’d never asked myself why I wanted to publish books. Questioning that goal pushed me to explore more genres, which made me realise I didn’t have to write fiction and poetry; nonfiction is just as exciting and contains a huge variety—not just memoirs and marketing guides but also travelogues and literary criticism and nature essays and letters and sketches.
Genres are for classification and recommendations—but they’re not limitations to put upon ourselves. Consider, for example, the recent rise in auto-fiction and novels-in-verse, which experiment with the mixing of forms and genres.
Having clarity about goals and revising them regularly helps us keep our attention focused rather than scattered. I’ve gone through phases where I’d dream of becoming a columnist and a blogger and a citizen journalist and an essayist and an occasional writer of fantasy stories, but then struggle to do any writing at all because it was hard to choose where to start. Reconsidering my goals allowed me to direct my efforts towards writing what mattered the most to me. I asked myself the following questions:
- Which of these would I regret never writing?
- Which of these do I want to write the most urgently?
- Am I writing the things I want to read?
These aren’t the only questions that can help with better goal-setting; they come from my values and priorities. For example, I’ve struggled previously with accepting that we’re mortal and I still wrestle with the fact that I have no control over who will be affected by my work and how. Every time I find myself frustrated, it’s usually because I’m not doing work that aligns with my values.
Think about your purpose instead
Perhaps it would be more helpful to think about purpose. For example, when I was in college, I wanted to write to inform the public about the dispiriting conditions of the Indian education system. Now, as a postgraduate student and freelance writer, with too much on my plate, I find myself having the same purpose as Bond—giving pleasure to my readers by writing about the simple joys of life. Writing such essays and sketches, as I did in The Sky Zine, lets me pay attention to my surroundings and appreciate nature and weather in an era of climate anxiety.
My goal to become a novelist came from the outside, but the above purposes came from within. My need for meaning drove me to them, and therefore, to the essay, which seemed the most suitable form for these purposes. And so that’s what I focus on practicing (and submitting).
Consider the unique contributions you can make
Thinking about purpose allows us to make unique contributions as writers. My goals limited me because they were shaped by what had been done before. I wasn’t creative enough to imagine new possibilities, and when I did, I wasn’t brave enough to work on them because there were no models to emulate—what if I was setting myself up for failure?
But part of being an artist is to make what hasn’t been made before. If I only looked to those who had come before me, I couldn’t do something that was unique to me, make what I wanted to. On the other hand, just because I am trying to do something that has been done before will not automatically result in something unoriginal—it is impossible to not leave one’s mark on one’s work.
So question your goals. Think about your purpose. Go beyond the default and let yourself be guided by what you want to read and write, and, therefore, what you can offer to the world, even if that includes your own self as the ideal audience.
Bio: Ratika Deshpande (she/her) just finished her free, online book on the art, craft and business of writing. You can support the project here.
