My Summer Writing Goals...
June 23rd 2010 12:05
Summer has, for most students at least in the GTA, officially begun. My school ended on Monday and now I lie in wait for marks... but what will I be writing this summer? I've got big plans for Fictional Worlds and for my website and I'm hoping that summer will give me the time I need to put a lot of these plans into motion.
What's coming up in my writing life?
~A Fictional Worlds Newsletter-I'm hoping to draft the first few newsletters over the next two weeks. Originally I was hoping to have the first one out by the first week of July, but I'm going to push that back a couple weeks. I am looking for a few flash fiction (750 words or less) stories to include in the newsletter. If you're interested, please let me know at diannalgunn@gmail.com
~A Dear Diary eBook-I'm going to be taking the Dear Diary workshop and turning it into an ebook. This will include all original posts, a few extra articles, tons of links, quotes, and my most recent Dear Diary project along with some entries from past Dear Diary projects. I'm really excited to get working on this.
~Finishing Phoenix Falling's Rewrite-Phoenix Falling is a catastrophic mess right now and I've fallen massively behind. I've got a lot of work to do on Phoenix Falling including creating a stable, set in stone outline for this draft. It's been a bit of a nightmare.
~Clean up Moonshadow's Guardian-I'm hoping to do a basic cleanup of Moonshadow's Guardian by the twenty-ninth so that I can get my proof copy from Createspace. Really pushing it but that's my goal. I'm going to then have my grandmother read the proof copy and with her input, I'll be editing it one last time and prepping it for publication. (Really excited to be bringing this project back to life)
~Finish Alaendril&Emilia and find it a better name-this is my BYB project for the WriYe forums, and I've fallen a dozen weeks behind. I'm hoping to not only get back on track this summer but to finish the damn thing. It's a fun project and I just need to devote more time to it and let the story go where it will...
~Start Something New-I want to start a new novel length project of some kind once I've finished my rewrite of Phoenix Falling. I'm not sure if it will be something from the Jihad series or something entirely different, but it will at least be very distant from Phoenix Falling. That story is driving me insane.
~Write six short stories-I want to write at least three short stories each month of the summer for a total of six. They may or may not be involved in the world of Jihad, or they might be set in the world of Good Bye, where I'm seriously considering writing a string of short stories rather than anything novel length.
~Edit and submit Good Bye-I'll be giving Good Bye one final edit and I'm hoping to do that by the end of this month as well. I'd like to send it out on another round of fantasy magazines and ezines. I'm really hoping to get it published by summer's end, but if not, at least by the end of this year. Good Bye is one of my favourite pieces, a short story giving background to what was supposed to be a novel and is now an abandoned computer file. The world will probably become the place of several short stories, probably following the woman called Lai.
~Continue Blogging and Increase Readership-there are a number of things involved in this. I will be changing my blogging schedule to accomodate for my wounded wrist sometime in the next week, because realistically I can't blog five days a week anymore and still get my other writing done. That said, I will be increasing my presence on twitter (@diannalgunn) and of course I am always responsive to reader feedback and communication. I'm hoping that cutting back on number of posts will also increase post quality here at Fictional Worlds. It is a constant struggle for me to bring you quality content and to post it on a consistent basis, and I'm hoping that posting less will make it easier for me.
I'm hoping to increase my readership by about 200 people. I'd love to double it this summer. While I am happy with how far I've come, there's a long way still to go in the blogging world and I'd like to continue on my blogging journey.
~Last but not least, write for half an hour at least five days a week-I really want to increase my writing consistency. Half an hour isn't a long time and it's something I know I can do-and I can write well for half an hour. And once I've started, most times it's almost difficult to stop writing. It's just the difficulty of forcing butt to chair when there's so much else to be done... it's time to stop, slow life down, and make writing a real priority again.
Of course, most of these goals involve a lot more work than I've mentioned here, but that will be discussed more over the summer. I've got a lot of ideas and I'll be planning them out over the next couple of weeks. I just have to remember to pace myself-but the stabbing pain in my wrist every hour or so is helping to remind me.
What are your writing goals this summer?
What's coming up in my writing life?
~A Fictional Worlds Newsletter-I'm hoping to draft the first few newsletters over the next two weeks. Originally I was hoping to have the first one out by the first week of July, but I'm going to push that back a couple weeks. I am looking for a few flash fiction (750 words or less) stories to include in the newsletter. If you're interested, please let me know at diannalgunn@gmail.com
~A Dear Diary eBook-I'm going to be taking the Dear Diary workshop and turning it into an ebook. This will include all original posts, a few extra articles, tons of links, quotes, and my most recent Dear Diary project along with some entries from past Dear Diary projects. I'm really excited to get working on this.
~Finishing Phoenix Falling's Rewrite-Phoenix Falling is a catastrophic mess right now and I've fallen massively behind. I've got a lot of work to do on Phoenix Falling including creating a stable, set in stone outline for this draft. It's been a bit of a nightmare.
~Clean up Moonshadow's Guardian-I'm hoping to do a basic cleanup of Moonshadow's Guardian by the twenty-ninth so that I can get my proof copy from Createspace. Really pushing it but that's my goal. I'm going to then have my grandmother read the proof copy and with her input, I'll be editing it one last time and prepping it for publication. (Really excited to be bringing this project back to life)
~Finish Alaendril&Emilia and find it a better name-this is my BYB project for the WriYe forums, and I've fallen a dozen weeks behind. I'm hoping to not only get back on track this summer but to finish the damn thing. It's a fun project and I just need to devote more time to it and let the story go where it will...
~Start Something New-I want to start a new novel length project of some kind once I've finished my rewrite of Phoenix Falling. I'm not sure if it will be something from the Jihad series or something entirely different, but it will at least be very distant from Phoenix Falling. That story is driving me insane.
~Write six short stories-I want to write at least three short stories each month of the summer for a total of six. They may or may not be involved in the world of Jihad, or they might be set in the world of Good Bye, where I'm seriously considering writing a string of short stories rather than anything novel length.
~Edit and submit Good Bye-I'll be giving Good Bye one final edit and I'm hoping to do that by the end of this month as well. I'd like to send it out on another round of fantasy magazines and ezines. I'm really hoping to get it published by summer's end, but if not, at least by the end of this year. Good Bye is one of my favourite pieces, a short story giving background to what was supposed to be a novel and is now an abandoned computer file. The world will probably become the place of several short stories, probably following the woman called Lai.
~Continue Blogging and Increase Readership-there are a number of things involved in this. I will be changing my blogging schedule to accomodate for my wounded wrist sometime in the next week, because realistically I can't blog five days a week anymore and still get my other writing done. That said, I will be increasing my presence on twitter (@diannalgunn) and of course I am always responsive to reader feedback and communication. I'm hoping that cutting back on number of posts will also increase post quality here at Fictional Worlds. It is a constant struggle for me to bring you quality content and to post it on a consistent basis, and I'm hoping that posting less will make it easier for me.
I'm hoping to increase my readership by about 200 people. I'd love to double it this summer. While I am happy with how far I've come, there's a long way still to go in the blogging world and I'd like to continue on my blogging journey.
~Last but not least, write for half an hour at least five days a week-I really want to increase my writing consistency. Half an hour isn't a long time and it's something I know I can do-and I can write well for half an hour. And once I've started, most times it's almost difficult to stop writing. It's just the difficulty of forcing butt to chair when there's so much else to be done... it's time to stop, slow life down, and make writing a real priority again.
Of course, most of these goals involve a lot more work than I've mentioned here, but that will be discussed more over the summer. I've got a lot of ideas and I'll be planning them out over the next couple of weeks. I just have to remember to pace myself-but the stabbing pain in my wrist every hour or so is helping to remind me.
What are your writing goals this summer?
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Comment by RedParrot
I am pretty sure to almost definitely sure that I don't have any. Certainly don't have any where NEAR as many as your list and I have a vague sense of underachieving at my mumbles of not much. And while we are on the subject - it FASCINATES me in a "gee, people really DO that?" kind of way to watch some of the nano/screnzy crowd continue to love and adore and work on their novels / plays / comics etc.
Huh.
I have written three novels and four plays and - seriously - never made an edit beyond an odd minor spelly that made me nuts. This is not necessarily a point of pride, simply a point of fact.
To be perfectly truthful, I have no clue what to *do* with it. That is ... so I spend time working on it. Then what? For what earthly purpose would I go to all that effort? Seriously. I have no idea. So the works go untouched. A handful (three) beta readers get to read the material and we laugh about all my continuity issues and they make (good) observations about the works ... where I'm getting better, what they liked, things that made them laugh (other than my continuity issues). But that's it.
So ... having said all that and using the palaver as a buffer agains the inevitable "what's the list?" ... my list that I am completely making up and ending with a notwithstanding clause in case it doesn't pan out ...
1a. Participate in Lithy's workshops. The last one was fun. I learned stuff. I triple-loved posting comments.
1b. If there's other stuff to do - questions from here and / or exercises ... I should try them too.
2. Finish that stupid 89,000 fan fic. (yeah, I checked ... it's 89k, not 80k. Holy crap ... that's Nano-weight).
3. Draw some more this summer. Technically not writing but it often leads to intimate study of objects and ideas and places and events ...which is good.
4. Share more. I am not much of a blogger.
5. I have an article published in a professional journal and it occurs to me I could write another one ... so maybe I think about Other Topics to write about and pitch to editor.
It occurs to me I should record these somewhere visible otherwise I am going to forget them entirely.
I need to go lie down now.
Cheers!
RP
Comment by Nonymous
Philosophy Blog
Comment by Dianna G
I Wish This Was 42
Fictional Worlds
It might seem like a lot but with no job and lots of free time at home I think I'll manage, assuming I can get something done about my wrist fairly soon.
Thanks for the well wishes... I hope your writing flourishes this summer and I look forward to reading your musings.
~Dianna
Comment by Dianna G
I Wish This Was 42
Fictional Worlds
Moonshadow's Guardian, which I've started editing, was my 2006 nano. It's already been through some major rewrites and almost got published as an ebook a while ago. The publisher went out of business and life went back to sucking.
I'm hoping to get some leverage by editing and publishing my short story Good Bye as well as a couple of others, then to send Moonshadow's Guardian around in the next year or so. My dream is to have a novel published by my eighteenth birthday.