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?

NaNoWriMo - It's a wrap...

NaNoWriMo finishes for me not with a roar but with a whimper. This is probably because I finished 6 days early, so there was no mad dash, no sprint to the finish line. This was my first attempt at NaNo and I'm glad I made the effort, glad I embraced the challenge. One of my tutors at TAFE instilled in me the following advice - "Don't get it right, get it written" or, in other words, give yourself permission to write badly, first drafts are meant to be rubbish. Nowhere and at no time is this more true than at the end of a hectic 'write or die' 30 days of NaNo maddness.

So, am I happy with what I've written? Yes & No. There are parts of it that I will salvage, either to be used in the rewriting of my NaNo novel, which at just under 51,000 words is by no means finished (whether or not I choose to continue on with it is yet to be decided), or to be used for other shorter pieces of writing - the dialogue alone is useful.

So, was NaNo worth it? Of course! Even if I were to never use a single word I wrote during November, even if I was to delete the file from my hard disk (I won't - I don't delete anything, you never know when that phrase or sentence of dialogue might come in useful) it would still have been worth the effort. I had gotten out of the habit of writing - this is something that has happened to me at different times over the years - so what NaNoWriMo did for me was get me writing again. It gave me the right kind of motivation to turn up at my desk every day, to keep my bum in the chair and my fingers on the keys.

What do I take away from this experience? 1. Give me a deadline and I'll hit it every time! I had already had an inkling this was true for me. I work well under pressure. If I can physically see on a calendar how long I have to complete and submit a piece of writing I find it much easier to get on with the work. I will be setting firm but realistic deadlines for myself for my future writing projects. 2. Write fast. Okay, so maybe 50,000 words in 30 days is a little extreme, but I see no reason why I can't aim to have a 100,000 - 120,000 word first draft finished in say 4 mths. This seems less of a struggle than chipping away at it for a year or maybe two, at which time one of two things would probably happen - either I'd be sick to death of the idea & still be without a completed draft, or I'd have invested so much time in the project that, if in another two years or more when I think it's finally ready to send to a publisher I receive a rejection, I'll be so depressed that I'll never write another word.

Will I participate in NaNoWriMo again? Probably... How about you?

Productivity Slump

How on earth do I keep the writing momentum up when I have to stop all the time, often for days at a time, sometimes for over a week? I thought I had this whole thing figured out but life keeps getting in the way.

Family life, though there are now only three of us here, seems to be getting more complex as the days go by. We are all so busy! The man's business is in it's pre-spring-busy-period, looking after Jay is becoming more and more time-consuming as he gets older, yeah - it should be the other way around but tell that to an 11 year old with autism and see how far it gets you!

Now I know why I was in two minds about this job. Oh (hell yes) I love it, but the time I'm off work goes so damn quickly and then it's time to go to work again. I know I'm just being a big sook, and that many ppl work full-time, have families and still manage to write novels...just wish one of them would tell me where I'm going wrong...

Someone? Anyone?

The Dungeon

Today I posted this status to my facebook account - "Off to the dungeon (which is more attic than dungeon really)". The point is I'm trying (doggedly) to write every day, and though I may refer to that writing time as being off in the dungeon, or in fact "eating the elephant", the fact is I'm lucky to have a dedicated writing space.

My first was the conveniently positioned study off my bedroom, but once I began cohabitting with my lovely partner it became a shared space and didn't quite have the 'feel' to it anymore. After many years in a teenager filled double story house it is now just me, my man and my youngest. Thus a four bedroomed (plus study!) house has become a literal castle with empty spaces and echoes and all (well - maybe I exagerrated the echo bit). Of the 2 upstairs bedrooms I now have one all to myself.



















Believe me. I know how lucky I am...