A Novel Idea
Heyo, it’s time for my monthly goals check-in and new goal setting! My last goal check in was with the entry titled Moving the Goal Posts, which referenced the goals below. Current updates are below each!
March Goal 1: Attend writing conferences.
Done! As I mentioned at the end of February, I had already registered for two, and I attended both. I found the Women In Publishing Summit (WIPS) to be extremely worthwhile. I learned A LOT, and I got to network with a lot of other women writers, including some other women fantasy writers! Because it was virtual and recorded, I even got to go back and watch the sessions that interested me, which I couldn’t make in person. I’ll keep my eye out for other such conferences in the future, and I hope to attend the WIPS again next year.
March Goal 2: Write at least one blog post per week.
Success! This one seemed pretty doable considering how prolific I was on the blog in February, and it was. I wrote exactly four posts in March, two related to writing and two related to outdoor adventures.
March Goal 3: Write chapters 2 and 3 of my novel.
Check! I not only got chapters 2 and 3 done, but I started on chapter 4!
March Goal 4: Make some progress toward overall 2022 goal (Submit to at least 12 free writing contests with cash prizes).
This one failed, but not really. This overall 2022 goal is getting nixed. I set it before I decided to write a novel, and since that’s where my focus is now, I don’t want to keep distracting myself with an aim that’s no longer meaningful. I gave myself all of March to think about it and I didn’t submit to any writing contests during that time, so it’s a done deal. I may submit to one or two here and there, but it’ll be icing on the cake if I do.
So, what’s next?
I stated in my last writing post that if I wrote 3,500 words per week, I could have a completed full-length manuscript by the end of September. And I speculated on whether setting a 3,500 weekly word goal would be a good idea. And then I failed to pull that off. I wrote 3,500 words that same week, and then barely wrote anything the rest of the month…….yeah.
April is going to be even harder. The weather is warming, COVID is (maybe, finally?) in remission, and activities are back in full force. Michael and I have every single weekend booked all of April and May already. Which makes spontaneous plans or downtime at home difficult to pull off. Plus, we’re trying to remodel our van. Oof. So I need to be intentional. 3,500 words per week is ideal, but the actual struggle is going to be making time to write. So with that in mind…
April Goals
Write for one hour every day, at least five days per week. We’ll see how it goes! Hopefully, this leads to 3,500 words per week, but if it doesn’t, that’s okay. I will still make progress, and setting a habit will be more important than setting a word count. I haven’t done daily writing since January, but giving myself the five days a week instead of seven will allow some flexibility for our upcoming busy schedules.
Write one blog post per week. This was doable for me in March, so I want to keep it rolling. I enjoy writing these posts.
Read three more books. Despite setting no goals related to reading at all this year, I have somehow read three books every month, which means I’ve read nine books in 2022 already. So my April goal is just to keep that train on the tracks. After all, as Stephen King says in On Writing, “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.”
2022 Goals
Finish the first draft of my novel. WHAT?! Yeah, big surprise, right? This goal makes way more sense for where I’m heading, and it’s doable if I keep at it. Hopefully, I can complete it before the end of the year and move on to the next phase (editing). But if I have a completed manuscript at the end of this year, I will be supremely tickled with myself.
It feels a little crazy to me how much my mindset has changed since I set my new year’s resolution way back in December: to reignite my spark for creative writing. And here I am in April on working toward my childhood dream of becoming an author. I didn’t know that this would be where that resolution lead me. But I am thrilled that this is where I’ve ended up. The first quarter of 2022 is complete. I’m excited to see where the last three quarters go.
