Ah, the last day of the year, a day that is often one of exhaustion, recuperation, and reflection, but also one that brings with it the promise of a new year and a fresh start. In that spirit, and in keeping with my promise last month, I wanted to share my goals for 2024.
I will be referring to these during my 2024 Writing Updates, so you (and I) can keep track of how I am progressing. Putting these out there, I hope, will give me more of a push to work harder at achieving them. So here they are:
1 – I want finish editing book one of my YA series to the point that I consider it good enough for publication (it probably won’t be, but I want to get it as far as I can take it).
2 – I want to begin querying agents to see if I can publish that book, and its sequels, traditionally.
3 – I want to finish the first draft of book 2 in that series and begin outlining book 3 with an aim at starting the writing process this year as well.
4 – I want to have at least 2 short stories accepted for publication (not ones I submitted in 2023).
5 – I want to extend my visibility as far as social interactions and publicity goes. Part of this will be an increase in how many blog posts I do. I’m going to aim for at least one a week and I will share them on my Facebook page. Other than that, this goal remains somewhat vague since I am not sure what it entails or what other steps I may take. But if I have a noticeable uptick in my online visibility, then I will consider this one achieved.
So those are my five goals for the upcoming year. Accomplishing some will help with the last one, so hopefully I will be able to call many of these achieved goals at some point in the year.
Next, a bit of bad news – Blade of Glass was not chosen to appear in the publication I submitted it to. Rejection is a part of being a writer & if you can’t deal with it, I don’t recommend putting yourself out there. The way I deal with it is simple – a few minutes of disappointment, after which I remind myself that I did my best, that I am proud of the story I wrote, and remind myself that the story still exists! I will hold onto it, and maybe someday I can find a home for it.
Enough of that, now on to my writing month. I had only two active writing projects in December – book 2 of the YA series and a short story for an anthology.
Book 2 was on the backburner this month. The holidays take up a lot of time and I spent most of my writing time working on the short story I mentioned. I had another project to work on, but more on that in a future blog post (coming soon . . . very soon . . . keep an eye out!).
The short story was different for me, a bit of a challenge, and though it is only 5,000 words it took most of my free time to get it done. I wrestled daily with how to end it and compromised with myself to get to one that worked on different levels. I rewrote a large portion to try and get the tone right. And then, when it was done, I didn’t send it in.
I know what you are thinking. “You did all that work & then didn’t bother to submit it?” It seems crazy, I admit. I have two reasons for nor sending it: I am not thrilled with the tone & direction the story took, and I don’t think it is a great representation of my writing. I’m not saying it’s bad. Just not good enough. I’ll hold onto it, let it get out of my mind for a while, and someday it will come back around when I find the right place for it.
That’s a wrap for 2023. I have a lot planned for the coming year, and I am certain there will be some unexpected projects and challenges as well. I hope anyone reading this comes along for the journey as I navigate 2024 and beyond. If you do, well then, I guess that helps with goal #5. Keep reading, keep being awesome, and I will, as always, try to do something write.