Goals for April

What is that saying, "April showers bring May flowers"? Seeing as how I didn't accomplish many of my March goals I almost feel like I should advance that saying a month. Though I've decided to simplify my goals for this month because I suspect I put to much on my plate for March.



What I really want to accomplish most of all is getting through a novel revision or two this year. My goals for this month are set with that in mind. April is going to be a preparation month for actual revision in May. Why May? Well one of the LiveJournal communities I belong to is doing a May writing challenge, and I chose revision for my goal for that. (The point of the challenge is a choose your own goal).

So my goals in specific:
~More world building for my mining mystery (2yn).

~Revision outline finished for mining mystery (so can revise in May).

~Be more regular about writing in my journal. Yes, I recently started an honest to goodness paper journal. I figure I can write whatever off the top of my head, along with things I observe through the course of the day.

~Work on establishing my writing schedule.

~Haiku a day

~I'd like to critique if I can fit some in with my other goals. (I'm trying not to overwhelm myself with things to do).

And slightly off topic, but I'm reading Harry Potter (again) and something Dumbledore said to Harry near the end of book 2 sticks in my mind as relating to character development: "It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." I'll be keeping that in mind as I'm working on my characters more this month.

So, here's to April preparations bringing a productive May revision. I'm aiming to get through about 20k worth of my first draft, in the first of many revision passes.

Good luck to everyone else with their goals for this month.

Magical Fantasy, revisiting

One of my March goals involves working on my Magical Fantasy novel. I finished the first draft over a year ago and haven't done much with it. Revision time is looming ahead. Instead of simply diving into the revision I'm in the process of taking time to step back and look at the novel.

Tonight was the first part of that process (officially at least) with the really high level work. I took some time to write out the major conflict points (again), and also what goals I have for the novel, and my promise to the reader. In promise I mean what am I setting up in the first few pages that will be out there for the reader to keep reading and will continue through the book. With a mystery novel you have the sleuth character discovering the crime, and the promise of the book is being able to read along with the sleuth's investigation. For my novel the promise is a work in progress, but I have more thinking to do on some of this work yet. I'm not going to worry about it.

I also spent some time writing about the main conflicts of the novel. The major one is for the main character (Trenkisa) to set out from home and find what she wants to do with her life. At the start of the novel she's at home with her family, and expected to follow in the family trade (metalworking). I'm still working out the details on her conflict some more. Like figuring out if she's traveling to look for magic users, or if she's traveling simply to find something new. Either way magic is involved in the plot, but the character's motivations will shape the novel.

I mentioned doing a practice query with this novel a short while ago. I'm still planning on that. After I finish with the conflicts and novel goals/promise I'll put a query together. I am also planning to read through the first draft and jot down what jumps out at me. Then I'll create a revision outline and dive in.

March Goals

I posted this over at Forward Motion, and am posting it here to.

Here's what I'm aiming to accomplish this month.

4 Critiques - Seeing as how these are shorter works I'm planning on doing one crit a week.

Back to school for busy writers - get started on this. Outline the class and have the first 2 lessons done. Bonus points for all of them done. (It's an FM thing).

Magical Fantasy - Do my practice query in prep for more world building and a revision outline. I'd like to get a good start on the outline and world building as well.

2yn - Do some of the lessons for that and get closer to being caught up. (Another FM thing - my Mining Mystery)

Alpha read for a friend - I can fit this in around the other writing.

Website clean up - My poor writing website is in rough shape. Some sections need to be put together, others need cleanup, and some just need updating.

Finish organizing my writing area. I've got a good start to this, so it's mostly finding homes for the last few things on my desk then putting the mini crates up. Oh, and watching out for the cat she likes to sit on top my tower and paw at stuff on my desk. Pens are her favorite so I've gotten good at keeping them in their spot. (I have something on my desk for pens, luckily she only bothers them if they are laying on a flat surface.)

SF short - start on first draft. This is related to the 2yn world wise, but it's a stand alone plot wise.

Write an hour a day

Sure, writing a draft is easy to measure the progress be it in terms of words or pages. Revising can be as well, depending on your process. But what about all those other writing steps that can't be as easily measured in words and pages?

I've been thinking about my writing progress recently with these in-between draft stages. I have more world building to do after a rough novel draft before I work on the pre-revision outline. I can count words in the notes, but it would be nice to have some daily goal to set for myself.

When word/page counts fail, enter time. I'll admit I am huge on the word count in terms of measuring my progress. It's great for writing drafts. But now with the planning the amount of material isn't as important as the ideas I'm working out. So I figure I can aim to spend about an hour a day working out various details of the novel's world and characters.

Who else does time goals for any/all writing stages? Do you all pick the same amount of time each day? Aim to write longer some days then others? Take days off during the week? I know at times with my word counts I'll like to write a bunch one day, then take the next off. Or write a shorter more intense scene the next day. It does depend on the story.

Everyone is different, there are probably many writers out there doing a time goal for drafts as well. And even different parts of the novel/story writing process can be approached differently.

Goal Management

As can be seen by the previous post, I have picked some writing goals for 2010. While it's nice to know what I am aiming to accomplish over a year's worth of time there is more work to be done with my goals to make them manageable. I need to look over the year, figure out when to work on what, and how much time to give myself for each goal. Keeping in mind of course that some things can be worked on in the same general time period.

When it comes to breaking down my yearly goals into smaller blocks of time, the forum I'm a member of helps immensely: Forward Motion for Writers. On that forum they have two areas of the site designed for writing goals. Not only can members share their goals with other writers, but we can also encourage each other. Both of these areas of the main forum are only viewable to FM members, but signing up is free, and there is nice group of people there. Though I'm hoping this post might provide some ideas on goal setting weather or not anyone joins FM (though it's a great site - I'm hoshikaze over there).

Anyways, the first area is Goals Workshop & Updates (Year/Month). This is where members can post their yearly goals. I've already posted mine to a thread there. But it's more than only checking in once a year. Each person who uses that area posts in their own thread, one thread per year. Within our thread we usually set monthly goals, picking from our yearly goals what to focus on for the month. Then at the end of the month we usually update the thread to show how many of our goals we've reached for that time period. Goals not met for that month can be carried over, or set aside, whichever the writer setting their goals wants to do.

The other area is Daily Page & Word Count (Weekly/Daily). Each week threads are started for members to post their goals for that week. With the shorter time period we share threads, 5 people each. At the start of the week, members will decide what they want to accomplish for that week, posting it to one of the threads. Then each day we update our section of the thread with what we've done for the day on our writing goals.

When I participate in these areas of the site it helps me to relate the two together. I first establish my goals for the year. Once I have that then I can figure out what to work on for the current month. It's those monthly goals I keep in mind when posting my goals for the week in the Daily area. Right now my goals for this week are to finish figuring out what I want to accomplish in January, in addition to some critiques and working on my 2yn/mining mystery novel. By the end of this week I want to update my yearly goals thread with my January goals. With my January goals established, that will help me figure out my weekly goals for this month.

So in closing, with goals it's good to break them down. For me I like to take my yearly goals, then pick what works for me each month, keeping in mind what will be left to work on for other months. Posting them on FM has the added benefit of support from other writers, and in turn I'll be posting encouragement as well.

2010 Goals

Well it's that time of the year to put together writing goals for 2010. What I mostly want to accomplish is revision, getting through a complete pass on a novel would be great. And yes, I'm planning on multiple passes, starting with big things like plot and characters then moving down to grammar and structure.

2yn/Mining Mystery - I'm aiming for a complete revision pass on this draft. At the very least figuring out exactly how my main character solves the mystery at the detailed level would be a good start. Maybe the mystery clues would be good for the start of the year. I still have more world building to do for this one as well, having written the first draft helped me to see where I need more work on the world, and where it's got enough planning.

Magical Fantasy 1 - World building for this. The first draft is done, and it's really rough. I'd like to get details down about how the world works, magic, politics, history, etc. Doing some more work with the characters as well would be good. I want to have this one ready for a revision pass come 2011.

Magical Fantasy 2 - Write the first draft. This goal depends on the work for book 1 of the series. I want to have more things figured out before going into book 2. This also depends on the mining mystery work. I'm not going to write this until I'm most of the way through the revision pass on that novel. I'd like to not keep adding to the number of first draft only novels I have.

Short Stories - Depending how the novel work goes I'd like to read through my short stories and see which ones I may want to revise and start submitting.

Critique - I'm a member of 2 groups, and I'd like to critique others work on a regular basis this coming year.

Back to School for Busy Writers - A Forward Motion class, offered by members for members. Depending on the scheduling they have planned for these next year I have an idea for a class.

Organizational wise - I need to set up my writing area better at home. I still have boxes around my desk from when we moved along with random things on my desk. I'm planning on moving my pc tower to the other side of my desk then I can move my shelf closer. Most of what is in the boxes is for that shelf. That will also leave me with some space for storage containers for the various stuff on my desk (which is mostly jewelery related).

2009 Year End

Well, 2009 was quite the year. I had plenty going on, from buying a new house to general family things, but I did manage to make some progress on my writing.

Back in January I had 4 goals for my writing:

2YN - Stay caught up with the class, start draft by year end. (The writing part of the class goes into year 2).

Fantasy to Be - My 2008 Nano. The first draft needs finishing, then start thinking of more world building in preparation for revision.

Children's book - Put together a nice edited/cleaned up digital version and start looking to sell this one somewhere. (which should be a project in and of itself as I've really only been reading up on some of the procedures for novels).

Alt Romance - This one's been hanging around for awhile now, I wrote the first draft early in 2007 and have only done minimal amounts of editing on the first few chapters. Would be nice to do an edit pass of this over 09.

And I managed two out of the four. My 2yn (the mining mystery) came along nicely, I even finished the draft. The fantasy draft is finished, and I've pondered the world some in which it takes place.

For the Children's book I still have to start looking into what I'll need to do for that. But I decided that I want to focus on my novels for 2009. I may decide to work on it come 2010, or maybe 2011.

The alternative romance still needs some character work, and I need to decide some things on it yet. I figure this will be good to set aside until I have a cleaner draft of my other two main projects. And I'm also tempted to take a trip to the Adirondacks, where a good part of the novel takes place for research purposes.

Stay tuned for my upcoming post on my 2010 goals, and possibly general writing resolutions.