Tag Archives: goals

Bling Blang Blung… DONE! The 2011 GoodReads challenge is in the bag!

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I set a goal this year to read 50 books and since I JUST finished book #50, it’s time to celebrate!

I’ve always called myself a voracious reader but in reality I probably read about ten books a year. Then I started writing in earnest and reading a lot helped my writing. So in an effort to feed this symbiotic relationship, I joined the challenge this year.

Looking over the list of the books I’ve read this year, I’m filled with pride and memories. Some were quick reads, some I had to push through. All of them gave me a sense of accomplishment that I’ve been sorely lacking lately.

Next year, I think I’ll add a few more and go for it again! Join me!

Had a bad day.

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So, I had a bad night last night. Very, very bad. Like, sitting in bed staring at the laptop, sniffling and sobbing, teary twitter updates bad night. And it was all my project’s fault.

See, here is the thing. I’m a writer. I have finally admitted to myself that I do this thing called writing. And now that I am well aware that I am a writer, I am looking past just “writing”. Now what I want is to AUTHOR.

I want to write a book. Not a book that I finish and smile at and put away. Not a book that is so amateur that I have to self publish because YE GODZ, lady, no one is going to publish that drivel. I want to author a book and then edit the crap out of it and rewrite it and edit the crap out of THAT and send it to 184 agents and have ONE say “yeah I think we can make this work” and have that agent send it to 45 publishing companies and have one of THEM say, “Yeah, we definitely want to publish this” and have my book be available at frikken Barnes & Noble where my mother– who lives on the other side of the country– can go visit a bookstore with her best girlfriend and stand there and stare at it and cry in the middle of the store and be all proud and stuff.

That.

I want that.

But the thing is? I’m not really sure I have that kind of talent. Continue reading →

2011 Goals- Reading and Writing Challenges

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I’m a recent faithful reader over at FictionGroupie, and Roni posted a great list today of her 2011 goals, which reminded me that I might want to set some for myself.

WRITING GOALS

As everyone is already well aware, I’ve re-upped for Get Your Words Out, 2011. I’ve challenged myself to 350K words for the year. No small feat but I’m not really afraid of it. Either I’ll make it or I won’t, but I’m not trying to fail. Of those 350K words, I need to set some mini goals as to what I plan to do with those words:

A. Finish All I Wanna Do. I was hoping for only 60 chapters but it may stretch to 61 o 62.

B. Write more short stories. We all know that short and succinct is a challenge for me.

C. Get back to my original fiction piece. Maybe I will write chapter 2 next year?

D. Write a big bang- 20,000 words on a subject. GYWO will be running this.

READING GOALS

I’ve been a busy little reader lately. I’ve discovered the world of eBooks which has made it easier and more convenient to read. I’ve never done an official reading challenge, so I’m going to join Roni here:

and here….

I read eBooks almost exclusively, so an eBook challenge should be no problem. I think I should also challenge myself to buy physical books at least once  a month. That’s probably a more difficult challenge. As for book reading, I’d like to set my goal at 50. I never counted before, but I’m guessing I’ve read about a book a month in 2010, give or take a month. I also want to REVIEW them, which is a challenge for me as well.

BLOGGING GOALS

I’m trying to be better about being more descriptive as to the process of writing. What are my goals, what am I thinking about, what am I planning. And when a chapter/story is done, what I thought of it. What were my strong/weak points, what I could improve on. Anyone who knows me will tell you I’m a pretty hard nut to crack about myself. I’m not in anyway deluded that I’m an “excellent” writer. In my humble opinion, I could use some work.

So I’ll be getting down to it in 2011.

Got an itch I need to scratch…

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I feel like I haven’t written anything new in a long time. Probably because it’s true. I’m not talking novel length. Something short. A writing exercise. Or something. I’ve still only got that one story published, but THANK YOU to that benefactor that sent me the hugelongawesome list of places to submit my work!

Now all I have to do is write something!

I’ve been following Courtney Reese for a couple of weeks now (uhm fellow Criminal Minds fan, HELLO match made in heaven)  and she posted a GINOURMOUS list of blogfests going on… basically where someone issues a challenge to write along a specific topic and then submit their entry. Fun, and it makes people write. I may join one. Or several.

For example, the new writer’s blog Critique_This_WIP has a FlirtFest going on, where the task is to write a flirt scene. How FUN. I don’t have a firm idea right now, but I’m sort of inspired by Pride & Prejudice (it’s about time to watch that movie again) and the scene between Darcy and Eizabeth Bennet, where they are dancing, though Darcy proclaims to not dance, and they’re having a particularly high brow yet very flirtatious exchange. They just don’t realize that they’re flirting.

I have completed a very loose outline of the remaining story in All I Wanna Do. I am encouraged by the fact that I know how it ends. I’m not writing into oblivion. I am trying to think of places where I could skip story– it just doesn’t seem to work. The end is very climactic and everything that’s been talked about in the story thus far is important to the emotion of the ending. I want to be lazy, but I also want the ending to make an impact. So I have to write. SIGH. And I cant just write ‘okay this happened and then that happened’ and have a bunch of lame flashbacks. Unfortunately. It’s not a novel but I like it to read like one. That means I take my time crafting the story. And that means I have to be inspired and motivated and ~feel~ like writing because when I don’t, I end up trashing it and then it’s a waste of time.

Normally, my reading inspires me to write…. it just hasn’t been. I’m smack in the middle of A Reliable Wife. It’s alright. It doesn’t inspire me much but I am trying to plow through it. I may be tempted to buy it on Kindle, just so I don’t have to drag the book with me everywhere I go and I can read it in those off moments I so often have.

Also, remember my search for an active writing community of people that aren’t from the UK? FOUND.  I stumbled onto the Writer’s Digest community. It’s totally active and awesome and there’s so much there that I haven’t had the chance to dig into it much but it is my next stop after I publish this entry!

Which I am doing NOW, because I am cold and I need some tea. And I need to get away from these donuts.

On Pins & Needles!

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I feel… excited. Anticipating something great…

I keep a separate blog, a personal blog away from this one because I want this one to be specifically about my writing, focusing on it, keeping it in my face with pinpoint precision. On my personal blog, I don’t have too much excitement about the New Year. It’s coming, whether I get excited about it or not. That’s not to say I’m forlorn or depressed, I just didn’t really create a lot of things to be excited about in the next year. That might change in January but… I’ve become more  seat-of-the-pants in other aspects of my life, not just my writing. We’ll just see what happens.

This blog, though… SIGH (that’s a good sigh). I feel like 2010 is just going to be a great writing year for me. And I’m trying hard not to lose that oomph! and enthusiasm, because I need it. I waste so much time during the year feeling down and avoiding writing because I don’t feel like it, or because I think it sucks or it’s boring and not enough time just dang writing. Get it on paper, edit it later. Or not. Just write! These are the things I yell at myself while I’m watching the fourth straight hour of TV, staring at the Word icon, thinking I should open it.

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Get Re-Excited about Being a Writer! [repost]

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I’ve been thinking, and thinking a lot about the New Year as a writer, and reading lots of great advice on how to approach and achieve my goals. I found this through the #writing chat on twitter, and thought I would share!  Hopefully it will help someone else, it’s definitely given me some things to think about.

Source: Beneath The Cover

Get Re-Excited about Being a Writer!

By Susan Goodsell – Dec 28 , 2009

New Year’s Resolutions—Love ‘em or hate ‘em, you simply cannot escape them!
Personally, January 1st has always given me a thrill. I get a sort of “back-to-school” feeling and enjoy the whole mentality that, “The holidays are over, so let’s crack open a new notebook, sharpen a new #2 pencil, and get to work!”

That said, after many years of disappointment over unrealized and unrealistic resolutions (you know the ones: This year I will go to the gym every day/never raise my voice/take a trip around the world/double my salary/touch nary a chocolate chip cookie/etc.) I’ve grown a bit older and wiser and have tempered my resolution enthusiasm with a bit of reality.

For 2010, my writer friends, I am NOT encouraging you to resolve to:

1. Write three novels (as yet unstarted).
2. Write six hours every single day (in addition to your full-time job).
3. Be a syndicated columnist by March (with a column that has not yet been printed anywhere).
Nor am I encouraging you to follow the path of several of my more cynical friends to, “Resolve not to make any resolutions.”

Rather, I’d like to suggest you get re-excited about being a writer!

Sit quietly for a moment and let that concept settle around you. Do you feel a little tingle inside?

“Getting re-excited” is my theme for 2010 in my BNI business, my writing career, and my personal life. What a great concept!

With the doom and gloom in the economy, real estate market, and in the small business community, I sometimes spend so much time putting out fires that I lose sight of why I do what I do. (And I do love what I do!)

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New Year’s Resolutions for Writers & Bloggers [repost]

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Just found this excellent post that I’m planning to put to good use in 2010. Thought I’d share it!

It’s from Year Zero Writers

As writers and creators of content, more and more we’re finding it necessary to turn to the Internet to showcase our work. While we cannot be in several places at the same time, it’s possible for our material to exist in numerous corners of the Internet, all at once. In an age where Literary Agents and Publishers are holding back on marketing their authors’ books we simply have to turn to each other to propel our material to different audiences, something one person can’t possibly do on their own.

This is where you come in. Make a new year’s resolutions to help promote your writer colleagues fromyour little corner of our huge office we call the web.

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