020 | How to Set and Reach Your Writing Goals: Why Writing Challenges Are My Go-To Strategy

In the latest episode of Christian Author 2.0, Jeremy makes the case that caretaking goes beyond editing, publishing, and managing the business side of writing. It also means creating the books, stories, and series you’re called to bring into the world.

With Faith-Based Book Writing Month coming up in October, this episode offers a practical way to approach a big writing goal without getting overwhelmed.

🗝️ 5 keys you’ll learn

1. Caretaking includes creating. Your vocation needs more than one finished book sitting on the shelf. Jeremy explains why writing the next book, expanding a series, or developing a new story world is part of caring for your long-term author career at 05:08.
2. Challenges can give your writing a useful time container. A month-long challenge creates a defined period for reaching a specific goal, whether that means starting a book, continuing a manuscript, or expanding a series at 12:50.
3. Big goals get finished one sentence at a time. The target might be 50,000 words, but the work begins with the first sentence, then the next paragraph, then the next chapter at 15:35.
4. Your progress becomes motivating when you track it. The Faith-Based Book Writing Month web app lets you track words, pages, or minutes and watch your progress bar grow at 17:04.
5. Your writing sessions need to fit your actual capacity. Jeremy recommends finding out how many words you can write in a focused session, then blocking enough time in your calendar to reach your larger goal. For him, that’s about 500 words in 30 minutes at 19:48.

⚡Fun fact from the episode

During the pandemic, around the time he turned 40, Jeremy entered a short story a week challenge. He completed 52 short stories in 52 weeks, then used them to expand his author library and develop themed collections at 10:13.

📗 Take the next step

Faith-Based Book Writing Month begins in October. Set your goal, block the time, and join the challenge at faibowrimo.com/join.

Hey, creative Christian, Jeremy Bauma here, and welcome to Christian Author 2.0, the podcast for modern stewards of the written word with insights for your GospelWise Author journey. For 2 decades, I've watched authors struggle with their creative calling. That's why I built the GospelWise Author ecosystem, to provide the practical training and high-tech tools you need to thrive. From deep dive insights to specialized apps and personalized coaching, I'm here to help you turn your manuscript into a movement. So stop guessing and start growing your reach with excellence. Let's dive into today's episode and master the path together. Hey, Creative Christian, Jeremy here with another episode of Christian Author 2.0, and I'm recording this episode at the middle of September 2026 as I have just launched The new round for Faith-Based Book Writing Month, the challenge for creative Christians like you coming up here in October. This was launched last year, 2025, as sort of the inaugural stab at offering a month-long writing challenge specifically for Christian authors.

Inspired by— probably recognize the connection there— to NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month. And I thought, you know what, we need something for us Christian writers specifically. So FabowriMo was born. So I'm gearing up myself and have launched this, opened the doors for creative Christians like you to also help others gear up for a productive season of writing. And as I open the doors middle of September, I'm recording this episode specifically for the caretaker persona. If you're familiar with my work, I think about my author career and all of the roles that are required of My vocation as an author and all of the roles required for your vocation as an author in these sort of personas, this framework of the Gospel-Wise Author Personas: Christian, Creator, Caretaker, and Connector. Of course, in October, we're going to be jumping into that role of the Creator with both feet. Dedicating the month of October to creating, to starting, continuing, or finishing that passion project that Christ has put in our heart.

Well, coinciding with that creator persona is also the caretaker role, and it might be odd to think about entering into a creative challenge like this while adopting that role and taking seriously that role of the caretaker. But, you know, if you think about what is required of us as authors, doing the work, creating, writing the book so that we can then publish the book, the care— the caretaker role really should be front of mind as you consider whether or not to even engage this kind of challenge. Because when it comes to the caretaker persona, the caretaker is usually concerned with the publishing side, with the business side, what happens after you create, what happens to that manuscript, refining it, editing it, getting it ready to then publish it and put it out into the world. But if you are thinking about your calling as a creative Christian, as an actual vocation, as a calling, something that Christ has called you into something that is beyond just a hobby, but a real vocation where you envision writing more than one book, then the caretaker role is more than just caretaking the book. The caretaker role is also responsible for and needs to keep in mind The fullness of your author career. You're caretaking the book, but you're also caretaking your vocation. And in thinking about the challenge coming up, I was considering what does this look like to lean into and live out the caretaker persona as an author when it comes to my author vocation? And I thought that, you know what, These challenges, these writing sprints, these time containers dedicated, set aside to doing the hard work of creating, is what it looks like to fully enter into the caretaker role. We caretake our author vocation when we get serious about the work of creating.

When we get serious about adding more books to our Creative inventory, if you put it in that sort of business sense. Think about the role of someone who is a shopkeeper, maybe a baker, somebody who owns a bakery and they specialize in pastries. You got the apple streusel pastry, you've got muffins as a form of pastry. Cinnamon rolls, donuts, uh, all other sorts of delectable delights, right, in that bakery. The baker, or the owner of the bakery, is not only responsible to create these delectable delights, but they are also responsible to caretake the business, right? And if they were only concerned with producing, creating, One pastry. That shop is gonna look pretty bare. The bakery is gonna look pretty— they're gonna be slim pickings for the patron who wanders by that storefront and looks inside and sees the one cinnamon roll there. They're gonna wonder what on earth is going inside, what is going on with this bakery if there's just one cinnamon roll sitting there, or just one kind of Pastry to enjoy.

That baker needs to consider creating a wide range of delectable delights to sell to a wide range of people, or offer a variety of cinnamon rolls or a variety of muffins or a variety of donuts, more than one, to sell to connect those 2 people who Want the pastry, want the baked goods. The analogy is starting to break down here, but I think you see what I'm getting at. Thinking about your— the fullness of your vocation as a creative Christian, you need to caretake that vocation by creating more to offer your readers, to offer the world, whether that's fiction, whether that's nonfiction, Maybe you have the one book and you are thinking, how can you expand that series? Or how can you expand into a new genre of literature to reach more readers? That's the mindset that we need to take on as caretakers. That's what it looks like to fully lean into and live out the role of a caretaker. We need to set goals for ourselves. To create more. I don't say that to put more pressure on you, as if creating more is the end-all be-all. Creating more for creating more's sake can lead to bad outcomes.

And what we create, how we create, and the care that goes into creating— that is certainly part of the creator role. When we slip into The creating mode, what we are creating, how we are creating, the care that goes into creating. But as the caretaker, we need to think about how do we put ourselves in the position of actually doing the work of creating, of creating more? How do we set goals for ourselves to write that next book? How do we set goals for ourselves to write the next series so that we can then caretake that next book and caretake the series with the interest of publishing it and then connecting it to the world. For me, one of the best ways that I have caretaked challenges like Faith-Based Book Writing Month or NaNoWriMo back in the day or other book challenges I've leapt into with both feet to write short stories. I've mentioned, I think, in this podcast elsewhere that I jumped into a short story a week challenge about a month into the pandemic, and actually about a month into turning 40. So I entered middle age and entered a pandemic, and I don't know if both of those things together broke my brain and Made me think, sure, I think I need to enter a short story a week challenge. Either way, I wanted to learn the craft and the art of short story writing, and I thought that a challenge would be the perfect way to do that. But I also wanted to expand my inventory of stories and books by writing in— My story worlds and developing a new story world, Mill Creek Junction, where I wrote a bunch of these short stories in, to assemble them into collections that were themed-based that I could then add to my author library, my storefront.

That— think about it again, that shop, that bakery offering different kinds of pastries for different kinds of patrons. I wanted to do the same thing, offering different kinds of books different kinds of stories to my own patrons, my readers. So I entered into this short story a week challenge, and I somehow succeeded. 52 short stories in 52 weeks, and I think several more beyond that. But that challenge, that time container, was the perfect way for me to not only grow as a creator, but to be serious about caretaking my vocation by writing more, executing on goals that I had for myself to write more, to expand my library, my storefront, to be able to offer more, more stories, more books in these collections to more readers. I think perfect illustration of how a challenge can be beneficial to your author career. I have done several of the NaNoWriMo in the past, and I've also lapped into my own faith-based book writing month challenge along with many of you the last year, using the time container to write the next book, to expand my series, or even write the next series. One of the NaNoWriMos, I actually developed an entirely new series that I have written 12 books in an end times series called End Times Chronicles, and then I used last year's Faborymo to expand that series into a spin-off, End Times Resistance.

And my plan is to enter back into that again this coming month. But the time container, the challenge, has been super beneficial to me to caretaking My vocation as an author, to help me set goals, to write the next book, to expand into a new series, to expand my existing series. And I think the same thing could be true for you. Using a challenge, a time container, as I like to talk about these things, you're entering into this time container, setting aside this time 30 days, maybe it's 3 months, whatever it is that you are saying, I'm setting aside this time, I'm entering into this time to reach a specific goal, to write this specific book. That's how I have used challenges. And the way I go about these challenges is realizing that I have the big goal. Okay, that's the big goal is the big book, the big word count. And you might be thinking, okay, the challenge sounds interesting, it sounds like a good idea, but how on earth do I execute on the challenge? How do I win the challenge? How do I run the challenge? How do I write the challenge so that I don't fall flat on my face? I get that, absolutely.

I remember back, uh, the very first challenge that I entered into, the very first NaNoWriMo. National Novel Writing Month, 12, 13, maybe 14 years ago, I had this vision for my first fiction book. Had never written fiction in my life, but I had this story that I'd been holding in my heart, that I'd been, uh, thinking through in my head— the characters, the plot ideas, the, the main framework for how it might unfold. And I had no clue how I would write this thing. And then you had the challenge of NaNoWriMo, which was pretty ambitious. 50,000 words in 30 days. How on earth would I do that? Same thing for FableRiMo. 50,000 words in 31 days is the kind of big goal.

The very— the big, hairy, audacious goal, as they call them. And I was staring down the barrel of that challenge, and I wondered, how would I do it? Especially when I sat down to write and I was staring down the barrel of that blank page, had never written fiction in my life, and then was just called to start. That is the way you go about doing it, actually. You sit down and you start and you just write. You have the big goal, but you start with the first sentence, that first paragraph, that first chapter. You write the first sentence, you write the next sentence, and of course those sentences turn into paragraphs and those paragraphs turn into chapters. You finish the one chapter and then you start the next. Basic, simple, stupidly simple, and deceptively simple.

And you still might be thinking, how, how do I do it? How can I win? You're staring at that big goal, the big elephant, and the question, you know, the classic question, how do you eat the elephant? The answer is similarly stupidly simple. One bite at a time. You got the big elephant, you want to eat the elephant, and how do you finish the whole elephant? One bite at a time until there are nothing but bones left, right? Same thing for that big book. You write the first sentence, you write the next, that first paragraph, the next paragraph, the first chapter, the next chapter, and then over time you start seeing those words, those paragraphs, those chapters add up like quarters in a jar, as I like to say. That's the beauty of a challenge like this too, as you begin and keep moving through it. One of the things I love about FableRhymo is you get a web app That lets you set up a project, put in your goal, word count goal, page goal. And every day you keep track of what you wrote, how many words, how many pages, how many minutes you wrote. And then you see the progress bar begin to grow.

That is the exciting part of a challenge, to see the progress, to see those chapters, those words add up, the pages add up. And that is wind at your back, wind in your sails, fuel to keep going and to finish, to get to the end, to eat the whole elephant. That's how I do it. And to kind of end this podcast episode encouraging you to caretake your vocation by thinking about writing that next book, entering into a challenge as a way to Get you to actually execute on those goals and to help you establish those goals to write the next book, to expand the series, to expand your storefront with more books, more delectable delights to offer your readers. Practically, how does this look? How do you eat the elephant? How do you write the sentences? How do you— how do you— how are you able to actually do The work. It begins with knowing how much you can write in a given session. These kinds of challenges, I call them time containers because they take time. You're setting aside time to do the work, but they also take time.

And they take the 31 days, but of course within those days you are writing— 30 minutes a day or an hour, hour and a half, maybe 2 hours to execute on the goal, to reach the goal, depending what that goal is that you've set for yourself. If you are ambitious and you want to set that 50,000-word goal in the 30 days, you're figuring out about 1,600— I think it's 13 words or so exactly. 1,615 words a day. So 1,615 words a day to reach that goal of 50,000 words. If you're writing 31 days of— in that month of October, you gotta write a decent amount of words, which means you've got to spend a decent amount of time in that writing chair, which is mine right back there. And you got to know how much time you need to reach that goal. And it begins with knowing how many words you can write in a session. For me, it's about 500 words or so I can get in a 30-minute block.

I typically write about an hour at a time, which means I gotta put in at least an hour and a half a day. Maybe an hour, 45 minutes to kind of gear up, to get into it. Maybe that's, you know, 2 45-minute sessions or 2-hour blocks that I set aside. Uh, knowing that, how many words I can write in a session Clues me into how much time a day I need to set aside to spend to reach that goal. So for you, how much can you write in a session? If you don't know, sit down, set a timer, start writing. 30 minutes is a good block, 20 minutes to 30 minutes. It's the Pomodoro method, they call it, where you just kind of sit down, usually about 25 minutes, start the timer, grab that Dedicated writing device, as I always advise. A certain computer set aside if you can afford it.

I use a cheap $100 Chromebook. When I grab that laptop, my brain, my creative brain slips into creative mode because it knows this is my writing laptop, my writing device. Now I'm just gonna write. I open my Google Doc, either where I left off or a new one, and then start. Set the timer, figure out the word count goal or the word count that you can make in a session, and then get the sessions blocked in your calendar. Add them up into session blocks so that you can get the words down in those writing sessions. Combine the word counts that you get down into a series of blocks. To reach the goal that you set for yourself.

Again, stupidly simple. Big elephant, one bite at a time. And for you with your big book, it begins with the word count. Next, into the writing sessions, the writing days, and then the time container. What can you dedicate? How much time can you set aside To write the passion project that Christ has put in your heart. I would encourage you, mid-September 2026, to sign up. faibowrimo.com/join. F-A-I-B-O-W-R-I-M-O.com/join.

Jump into the October session. We also have a January and a May session usually. So if you're listening to this later on, Consider joining in the writing fun, the challenge writing fun. Dedicate a month, set it aside for not only that passion project, not only your readers, but Christ himself. Do the hard work of a writer called, commissioned, gifted, permitted to write. Take the bite, do the work, and you will be amazed at what you can accomplish when you actually set aside that time, set the goal, you will reach the goal for the sake of God's glory and the gospel good of your neighbor. That's a wrap for today. But the real work happens inside the Gospel Wise Author Fellowship, a totally free membership filled with actionable advice and practical insights.

For the deep dive articles, tools, and coaching you need to thrive, go to gospelwiseauthor.com/join. Everything we discussed today and the resources to help you implement it is live in the hub right now. So join the fellowship, grab tools and training, and let's build a lasting GospelWise Author legacy with lasting impact. That's gospelwiseauthor.com/join. See you next time on Christian Author 2.0 Insights.