Tag Archive: resolutions

For 2016, a new short story every month

I’m blessed that writing (sort of)(barely) pays the bills. But one result of taking something you love and turning it into work is that it becomes an obligation rather than an escape. You HAVE to do that if you want to make a living from it, of course — I would have faltered years ago if I didn’t decide that I had to prioritize writing in the same way you do any other job — but you lose a little of what drew you to it in the first place. For me, it was the joy of playing with words; of creating people and situations out of whole cloth; and of looking at a page and saying, “Holy shit, I made that!” These days, I…
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Writing-related New Year’s resolutions

I’m not much for New Year’s resolutions. They’re either a laughable waste of time, a recipe for disappointment, or both. But I do believe in setting goals, especially when it comes to what I want to accomplish with my writing. I’m way too scatter-brained and easily distracted to stay focused without a clearly defined set of goals in front of me. So with this in mind, last December I outlined a set of goals to accomplish in 2009. They were as follows: 1) Finish refining my middle grade fantasy novel and BEGIN SEARCHING FOR AGENTS. The book needs at least one more pass before it’s ready for prime time, but that should not stop me from being ready to start the querying process. 2) Finish…
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GOAL: finish my novel by Dec. 31

Amid all these other projects, one of my goals this year was to finish the dystopian science fiction novel I’ve been working on. My progress has been unsteady, but it is moving forward. I’m roughly 25,000 words into it. But that’s not far enough. I need to get the first draft finished by the end of this year. That’s my personal goal. So I’m calling myself out. First draft finished before the end of the year. If I do not do that, I suck. That is my deadline. First draft, end of the year. Deadline. I am committed to doing this. It is my top priority. It seems like the end of the year is a while away, but it’s actually a pretty tight deadline….
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