Last words for 2011

Well the time has come to wrap up on another busy year of reading and writing. I got off to a slow start reading-wise due to last year's christmas toy (iPad) but I finished strong.

I've read a lot of poetry this year and have added quite a few titles to my shelves. Some favourites include This Floating World by Libby Hart, Ocean Hearted by Graham Nunn, The Taste of River Water by Cate Kennedy, Stepping Over Seasons by Ashley Capes and Seasons of Doubt & Burning by Robyn Rowland.

As for fiction, I enjoyed some fantastic story-telling by Jon Bauer Rocks in the Belly, Emma Donoghue Room and Mette Jakobsen The Vanishing Act.

I didn't do as much writing as I had hoped but still managed a fairly hefty rewrite of the first 90 pages of my novel and about a dozen new poems and 2 short stories. What I didn't do this year was send anything out for publication. So this is the big goal for 2012 - submit! I'll have plenty of poetry to work on for submission because I've signed myself up for Month of Poetry and will be writing one new poem a day throughout January.

I was part of two writing/critique groups this year and gained some valuable feedback on my novel from both so a big thanks goes out to Tony, Eleanor, Sam M, Bec, Sam P, Stacey, Kathy, Tina and John.

I brought you 33 author interviews throughout the year and I hope to bring you more in 2012. I am going to focus on poets next year (with a few fiction writers in there as well) and hope to bring one contemporary poet to your attention each month. Perhaps I'll even share some of my own...

Enjoy the holidays, however & wherever you celebrate them and I hope you keep reading in 2012.

~ Lisa

Writing Goals for 2011

Well I may as well put them out there, create a little accountability. I know from experience that without a goal/deadline I am prone to cronic procrastination - cronic to the point of being terminal, as far as my writing goes - that doing the washing or vacuuming the floor become tasks I want to spend my time doing, and as I now have an iPad, well...you can imagine how easy it will be to time-waste in '11.

So here they are, in no particular order... by this time next year I hope to have...

6 published poems, 3 published short stories, 2 blog posts per month (which shouldn't be all that hard seeing as I already have a couple of dozen writers signed up for my interview series) and one completed first draft of 'a' novel. I will have to chose which of the three to concentrate on in 2011 and stick to it - pushing through the hard times rather than switching projects as I tend to do.

I also want to participate in NaNoWriMo again and, depending on where I'm at with the goal novel come November, I'll either use it to push through to a completed draft or use it to work on novel 2 or 3.

I've recently formed a writing/critique group with some of the writers I was at TAFE with, so with monthly deadlines and face to face feed back, I'm looking forward to a productive and creative year of writing.

How about you? What are your writing goals for 2011?