Discussion → Writing Goals for the New Year
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I’m wondering if anyone plans to set writing goals for the year ahead? If so, how do you determine your goals, based on what factors, any carrots or sticks? Up until now, my only goal has been to write every day, but I do have a certain fondness for list-making, resolution-stating, etc. and so an expanded set of specific writing goals might be in order for 2010. I am, however, a bit lost as to where to begin and how to proceed in a reasonable, "do-able" fashion. Thoughts/advice/sage wisdom??
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I set target goals for editing/ revision / submission - but I never set writing goals. For me, the writing comes or it doesn't.
My goal for this coming year - by spring, actually - is to finish putting together a ms of poems focused on cinema - and submit it.
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Target goals for editing/revision/submission, I like the specificity of this much more than my "writing goals" stab-in-the-dark idea. If you don't mind me asking, how do you determine these target goals?
Hope to read more of your poems as your ms comes together. Enjoyed A Scribbling on the Walls very much.
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my goal is to read 200-300 novels/ss collections this year.
writing wise, i'm not planning on doing much. i wrote and wrote last year, after about five years "off." i may write a few stories here and there but am planning to really lay some more foundation, if you will. the last 10-20 stories i wrote in 09 felt derivative of my work earlier in 09.
those five years "off" included very little reading.
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I never set aside time for writing - that's too structured for me. But, I always set aside time for revision - at least 2-3 times each week. Revision and editing - for me anyway - need structure to stay in focus. I see editing & writing at war with one another - different parts of the brain. So, I never confuse the two.
I do find that this focus on editing/revision can open windows for me with new writing that I probably wouldn't have found otherwise.
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I think that along with some preplanned projects, I will be looking into more diverse narrative methods that include a/v and learning some more software to achieve those goals. Maybe setting up a literary website that includes more of the a/v formats and encourages more writers to explore their own methods of form.
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In 2006, I posted 49 entries at my weblog, Ana Verse; in 2007, 148; in 2008, 38; in 2009, 75. In 2009, I printed a paper version (b-l-o-o-k) (book-of-a-blog). In 2008, I lived in NYC and wrote half as much as I wrote in MN in 2009. In 2008, I attended 100 poetry readings. In 2009, I published a poetry chapbook and a dozen short stories and poems.
Nearly 600 readers follow Ana Verse at Facebook. The site has had almost 20,000 visitors since January 2006. Sitemeter tells me there is a reader in Mountain View, CA who has read almost every webpage of Ana Verse (roughly 500) since September (when I attended a bluegrass festival near Yosemite and may have met him or her). Many birds dart near the feeder, but only one has built a nest. Who is it?
I saw Ana Verse as a mixed-genre book from the beginning when creating it was very exciting. An agent I contacted said there would be no interest in it as an American b-l-o-o-k. My goal in 2010 is to continue alone with it, with my one serious (anonymous) reader in California. There is a chance I'll package the short stories (fiction and non-) as a standard collection; there's a chance I will not ...
I plan to read at Fictionaut and to add perhaps one story (fiction or non-) a month.
David, good luck in your reading. Julie, I like lists, too. For me, gentle plans work better than strict ones. Good luck with mss., Sam and all.
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Funnily enough, reading this discussion, I just realized that I had a work process.
I rarely set aside time to write, but I'm always polishing something (currently working on a play). Usually, ideas and projects just come to me when I'm working on something else, and then a deadline or something comes up, and the new project just seems to slip into the stream somehow.
Except for those occasions when I'm actually assigned a project and a couple of free weeks, usually by my husband. :)
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these matchbook discussions keep me on my toes, mentally (thanks). since in my life away from writing i'm a strict disciplinarian with a need to be rather murderously effective in order to maintain a modicum of writing space, i have little use for strictness in my small creative world. i set no time aside, i simply write whenever i can with any tool is in reach for whatever time span is available.
too many ideas are my curse. channeling them into something useful seems to be my life's work. for me, the editing process is a meta-magical chamber of secret dirty work.
2009 was a great year for me given that i was only born last year. similar story to david erlewine's (with that multi-year hiatus. make it 7.) wrote 70 flash stories and published them on my blog. all the rest at http://bit.ly/8b13Wy
in 2010 i would like to edit my first novel (or chuck it), write a second one (or not), (perhaps) produce a lytle book of short/flash pieces (if there's still time) and write at least 500 words per day. i will read a novel per month (i'm a slow reader now since usually edit as i read, bad habit), and i'll be a good fictionaut.
i'll explore the litmag scene more by submitting some of my stuff (still learning) though i prefer to be asked. who wouldn't.
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as an afterthought - i love and loathe statistics - of the ca. 100k lit words that i wrote in 2009, i published (via blog, mag, fnaut) 2k or 2%, which strikes me as heroic, in some dimly primeval way.
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Mine would be a vague "don't let life completely take over."
It probably will.
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My goal is to continue to follow the light.
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Hi,
I've been neglecting the third draft of my young adult novel; the one that might, quite possibly, make it good enough for me to feel comfortable querying agents. I teach high school, and my goal is to finally do that third draft before Spring Break. So my method, it seems, is to choose a specific, self-contained project and some kind of deadline. During my Winter Break (that ends in three days), I had a much more nebulous goal. On my Winter Break "to-do" list, I just wrote "Write something." I was hoping for a piece of flash fiction, but I'll take the six or seven poems I ended up with. Only two of which will ever make it out of the notebook and into some kind of submission situation. But let me wish everyone good luck on their writing goals in 2010. Keep at it.
(This is a cut and paste from where Julie posted it with the larger group, but I'm very excited about my membership here, so I wanted to re-post!)
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I'd like to see my novel get picked up by either an agent or publisher and to have enough short story credits for my first collection. Read more, much much more...
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like most people, my goals are vague.
finish editing the novel I wrote last year by spring.
begin work on the sequel once the first novel is edited.
write a ton of short stories throughout.
read more (not hard--I've slacked on the reading these last few years).
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In that I'm 13/20 chapters through my current novel, I'd like to finish it this year despite working around my newborn daughter (nine days open today).
I have a much bigger problem managing the work around being a writer than doing the writing, which just requires strips of uninterrupted and focused time. I'd like to find an agent in 2010. Working on it.
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