Tuesday 14 December 2010

Writing G O A L S + 2011

2009 Achievements:
1. Finished off DAPHNE, after 10 years of writing it (I was 19 when I began, and 29 when I finished). Still needs editing!
2. Wrote little bits and pieces of stories, and edited bits and pieces of others, during the year, until November, when...
3. During NaNoWriMo I finished a 116,000 word story (the first in the Midnight SUNDOWN series) and quickly started in on its prequel, for which I wrote about 20k before the end of November

2010 Achievements:
1. Completed 3 novels in the Midnight SUNDOWN series, then realised that the 2nd novel actually needed to be divided in 2. The second half of it made a complete novel, but the first half needed some better ending. I still haven't given it that.
2. Started book 4 (which since the division of book 2 became book 5) in the Midnight SUNDOWN series, and still have not finished it.
3. Completed first revision of SUNDOWN, taking word count from 116,000 to 147,000. Yikes.
4. Cut about 19k from SUNDOWN during 2nd revision (have not finished this revision, but hoping to get there in the next week or so).
5. Participated in NaNoWriMo 2010, and won with a 94k novel.

And now onto the point of this blog entry: things I want to achieve in 2011.

Things I know I can do in 2011
1. Finish current edit of Sundown and order a proof copy of it via CreateSpace (this is free!!)
2. Participate in NaNoEdMo 2011, working either on book 4 of the Midnight SUNDOWN series, or my DAPHNE novel - at the moment I'm leaning further towards concentrating on Daphne
3. Participate/run the short story year-long workshop project with my critiquing buddies, possibly will be showcase this on Blogger - the Chrysalis Experiment
4. Keep my writing blog at Blogspot going & hopefully prospering a bit
5. Win NaNo 2011
6. Finish off first draft of STORM from the Midnight SUNDOWN series
7. Maybe look at doing a preliminary read-through/edit of Nausicaa (NaNo '10 novel)

Things I'd like to look at but probably will not get done in 2011
1. Preliminary edits of FIRE and EXCISION from the Midnight SUNDOWN novels
2. Figure out how to finish off CARNIVAL from the Midnight SUNDOWN novels series
3. Finish off 2008's NaNo novel (TURKEY BOURKE)
4. Get through 1st proper edit of SQUEAKY

Things I KNOW I will not get done in 2011
1. Finish off RAGEWATER book 1
2. Finish off SOMANA from the RAGEWATER series (probably has 40k to go)

8 comments:

  1. Awesome goals. :)

    You know, I missed the validation deadline by a couple hours and Nano can give me the purple winner's bar, but they can't give me a Createspace code. Ugh. Just, ugh.

    Anyway - The workshop project sounds great. And HOW many novels are you working on? Girl, you're insane. (In a good way).

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  2. That really sucks that you missed out on CreateSpace! I have to admit I've never used my codes before, this will be the first time. I guess that counts as a lot of waste too :P Oh well, I don't think I was ever ready to use them before!

    Hehe, as for the novels, yeah...a lot of them are OLD, like 10 years old or more, so working on them is a long time coming. But it is nice to be so motivated and have so many things to work on. If I get bored with one thing I can move to another :D

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  3. A nice blog you got here..:))

    10 years? that's a lot of commitment. I admire you, really. I'd have given up.
    And isn't that 6 books this year? Now I just wanna steal your achievements list.

    G'luck on the 2011 list. You'll get there!

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  4. Lots of writing going on here! I always use itineraries, and find that they really help me to visualize what needs to be done, and keep me on track. Good luck with all your goals :)

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  5. @Joanne: Itineraries - interesting idea! :D Thanks for the tip. And yeah, lots of writing and/or removal of writing that should never have been in there in the first place. lol. thanks!

    @Bee - Technically I probably only wrote 2-3 novels this year. The rest were written/started the year before. And yeah, it was HARD WORK finishing off that story after 10 years...but I'm so glad I did. I worked on it over my Christmas holidays of 2008/2009. Was an amazing feeling to finally get it done. Thanks for the comment :)

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  6. Trisha, you are a writing machine! If you could bottle your motivation & sell it to writers, you'd be set for life. : )

    ~Debbie

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  7. Thanks Debbie ;) I didn't feel all that motivated during NaNo, except to say I was motivated to finish so I could get it over with. But I'm definitely excited about 2011 now!

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  8. AWESOME goals! I love that you make them with your achievements in mind - it's easy to stay so focussed on the outcome we forget about the journey. Congrats on all your hard work :) It WILL pay off!

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Thanks for your words, me hearties! and don't forget to leave a link to your blog somewhere I can find it!