Sunday, January 7, 2018

New Year, New...Something

It's honestly been so long since I've posted here that I almost don't remember how. I last posted a little over a year ago, but in reality it's been almost two whole years since I've posted regularly. I have an innate desire to apologize, but I'm not sorry. Taking that time off was important. Unfortunately, my time off didn't give me an over-abundance of time to work on my writing. Or, more accurately, I didn't use my time off as well as I'd hoped in that area.

That's not entirely accurate. I'm being too hard on myself. I don't remember where I was when I signed off, but I have finished my upper Middle Grade novel and I'm on my third edit of it. (Edits are HARD!) Once I'm finished with this edit, I'll send it to a plethora of beta readers then research agents! So, yay! That's a thing I've done.

I've also written the first draft of a younger Middle Grade novel--more chapter book size--and have plans to edit that as soon as the other one is finished. That will go through a first round of my critique group, and we'll see what it needs from there. So, yay! I did that too!

I have started three other novels, all Young Adult, and have them in various stages of partial first draft. Very partial. One is a SciFi, one a Fantasy, and one...something else (fiction? contemporary? It defies classification--which is not good for marketing...). I have written on each of the projects since I last posted, so yay! Another thing I've done!

So, here's the thing. I'm not a planner. At all. Goals kind of stress me out. But, I need some accountability. So I'm going to state the things I'd like to get done, and post updates here about what I accomplish. That's kind of a boring blog, so I won't go spreading it around anywhere, but just writing here will hopefully give me the accountability I need.

I want to finish the edits to three of my novels this year--the three that are complete.

I want to finish writing the first draft to three novels this year--the previously mentioned partials.

I want to find an agent. (I acknowledge that this step is not entirely in my control, but I will pursue this course steadfastly once I have a novel ready.)

I want to read a bunch of books off of my TBR list. My Goodreads goal is 52 books, but my actual goal is to clear at least the top shelf of my TBR bookshelf. I'll always pick up the exciting new book and I'll always read the well loved old books again, but I need to make progress on these books that have been sitting here for way too long. They include writing advice books, non-fiction books, inspirational books, and fiction books for all ages. I want to read a variety.

I think that's it. Well, I want to clean off my desk. That should be a thing that happens. Really, there are a whole ton of things I want to do that are non-writing-related like exercise more and clean/organize the house and such. I'll leave those goals for now, but they might show up on here with me chatting about them--amorphous as they are.

That's enough for now. I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks for keeping me accountable to working toward these things. :)