I've never done one of these year in review posts, but since I'm aiming for new goals in life, I figured why not.
2016 had its ups and downs writing wise and in my personal life. Lost two family members and had another find out her cancer returned. Not fun times. On the upside did get to spend time with new members of my family. Got to go on a great vacation with my in-laws (I really lucked out with my wonderful in-laws!) and let my kids have some new experiences in life.
Writing wise, honestly I expected to be finished with Not Broken by now. The fact that I wasn't was depressing and only served to add to my mounting self doubt as a writer. I'm not going to lie, I spent way too much time wallowing and not focusing. That all changed in September of this year. In May I found an online group called Insecure Writer's Support Group. Perfect name right? Well after a few blog posts where I had to list out what was holding me back, I realized they were all excuses. Since September I've added 35,000+ words to Not Broken. It may not seem like a lot, but for me it's huge since in the three years since I started writing it I'd only done around 30,000+. It's not finished, but there is progress which is something I'd lacked for a while now.
I've joined another Facebook group called 10 Minute Novelist and a sub group called 365 Writing. I'm feeling confident in my main goal of 2017 to have Not Broken finished and published. I have an ideal date in mind, but I won't post it since I'm not yet sure I'll be able to meet that deadline.
I've never made goals for myself writing wise. Hell I don't really do New Year's Resolutions because I can't stick to them and who wants to feel like a failure? Not me! Because I'm trying to be more serious about my writing, I'm setting a few goals I hope to be somewhat easily attainable. Next year around this time, I'll come back to this post and see how many I actually marked off the list.
- Publish Not Broken
- Increase my social media presence
- Write a novella
- Start on my third book
- Participate in NaNo
Anyway those are what my goals are for 2017. Have you set any for yourself?
Wishing you a very happy, healthy, and exciting new year!
~Meka
You can't go wrong with loopholes :) Good idea keeping your list short and sweet. Good luck. With my 2017 writing goals, I have 13 to-dos! I want to publish novellas. My stories tend to range from 30,000 to 50,000 words. I want to submit shorts to magazines and anthologies. And, I want to protect my writing time. No distractions. So far, the 10 Minute Novelists group has given me inspiration. Only 10-15 minutes a day is doable.
ReplyDeleteKeep smiling,
Yawatta
Nope, love loopholes. :) I didn't want to over burden myself this first time out. Good luck with your goals! Protecting your writing time is key. It's made all the world of difference for me to set hours aside and then stick to them. Now if I can only keep myself focused since my mind tends to wander.
Deletethanks for stopping by