August Writing Goals

But first a word. Two words. Thank you. Thank you for your nice comments about the column. Y'all gave me a lift, and I appreciate that. The column runs on Saturdays, so I'll (try to remember) to post on that day.

And now! GOALS! I lay on my bed this morning trying to figure out my day and I had this realization. The rest of my August is C.R.A.Z.Y. Now I am a big, large advocate of writing no matter how nuts your life is because life is always nuts. On the other hand, I think my goals this month should reflect the choppy weeks and the ins and outs of family and guests. So with this in mind, here are my goals, which are more modest than they would have been had I posted yesterday.

1. Write 250 words M-F on the mystery.
2. Get the column in every week.
3. Bang out one or possibly two picture book manuscripts. Definitely one.
4. Desultorily (now THERE'S an adverb you don't see every day!) outline the YA mystery with plans (and hopes!) to get really busy on the thing in September.

Time to put my feet up now, after that perspiration-inducing goal-setting session.

Writing goals: a tiny retrospective

These were my writing goals for the month of July.

1. Write one picture book rough draft every week.
2. Write at least 250 words daily on the mystery M-F.
3. Free-write (bad) poetry as a way to access possible YA mystery M-F. (Sounds weird, but I do have a plan here.)
4. Write a query letter for a magazine article.
5. Write the column once a week.

Here's my assessment of how I did.

1. I have three picture book rough (really, really rough) drafts.
2. I didn't write 250 words daily on the mystery M-F, although I did, in fact, write that much more often than not.
3. Yeah, that was a good idea. Too bad I didn't do it.
4. I wrote that query! I gotta find it, though.
5. I did write the column!

Speaking of the column, I have some little frustrations, which I list below.

1. For whatever reasons, the Trib hasn't been very good about posting my most recent columns online in the place where most people would look for them (i.e., under my name). This has been a source of frustration to both me and my fab editor, Lisa. Hopefully, we've gotten this ironed out.
2. Ken spent a day down in Provo with a group of newspaper-reading people who told him how sad they are that I don't write a column anymore. They were surprised to hear about the Trib thing. I knew I was taking a risk of losing readers when I made the switch, but that was kind of discouraging news because these folks had been long-time readers.

But. Oh well.

On to goals for August. Which I will post tomorrow.

I'm hereby resolved to . . .

1. Treat writing like a job--the kind you have to go to every day except Saturday and Sunday.
2. Actively pursue writing for magazines this year--attempt to submit an article a month.
3. Read more.
4. Stay upbeat in spite of rejections and disappointments.
5. Be the first one to send notes of congratulation to fellow writers (I'll have to work fast to beat out Rick Walton, the single most gracious writer on the face of the planet).

I had this moment in December when I hit a real low--I just said to myself, "I'm done." As discouraged as I've been in the past, I've never felt like I could (or even wanted to) walk away from a Writing Life. The intensity of my feelings surprised and even scared me a little because for such a long time, I've defined myself as a writer. Anyway. I think I still want to do this. And these resolutions are in response to that hope. Wish me luck.

And good luck to all of you, as well.