2016 Writing Goals

The 27th day of December...the 361st day of the year. We only have 365 days, which means I should discuss a little something about my writing goals for next year...

Do you remember what my goals were for this year? If not, let me remind you:
1. Write and publish one profile for Literary Mama.
2. Write a review for Literary Mama with my sister, Gina. (The piece may or may not get published this year, considering we need to find a book, query Literary Mama, and then write the review.)
3. Query a total of 100 agents each for After We've Fallen and Beyond the Trees. (I'm a glutton for punishment... you all knew this, and I've already started querying, so it's not really as many as it seems. The only caveat is this: if I keep getting rejections, I need to look at my letter, my first pages, my writing. So this goal might not be realized this year, either.)
4. Finish writing my first complete draft of Hunting for Lilacs.
5. Get at least 30,000 words of The Chocolate Garden done.
6. Read and critique as much as I can for other authors.
Did I succeed in these goals? Let's see.
1. Done. (You can find that profile here, if you're so inclined.)
2. No. Not even on the radar at the moment, really.
3. No. The year did not lend itself to querying, and to be truthful, I'd like my entire writing group to read After We've Fallen before I query anymore. Beyond the Trees is tucked away in bed for now and might never be resurrected.
4. No. But I did manage to make headway on the story. I think I could finish it in under two weeks (based on my NaNoWriMo behavior).
5. Done. I added over 60,000 words to The Chocolate Garden and have a complete first draft. (But you knew that already.)
6. Done. I've helped out quite a few people this year, and they weren't all from my writing group.
Well that's a batting average of .500, right? And that's not bad if I do say so myself.

So what's to be done for the coming year? Instead of individual goals, per se, I'm going for one word to encompass what my year will be. And that word? Revision. Revision of The Chocolate Garden, a short story called Personal Chaos, After We've Fallen, blog posts, you name it, if it needs revising, I'm going to consider tackling it. I haven't quite figured out what will get revised first yet, but I have time to think that through.

As for goals other than those of the writing variety? I think I have some of those, too. I'll save that for the next post.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Happy Fall