2013 Writing Goals

[meg_evonne]

It is time to re-evaluate how my year of writing has gone. Did I meet my goals? Where did I excel? Where did I fall behind? Did I keep that crucial emotional balance between my family, my life, my work and my avocation of writing? Introspection can be revealing and sharing it can be an emotional risk. Then begins the decision process of setting new goals for 2013.

Let's make this a place to share your joys and accomplishments during 2012 but also a place where we can set tangible writing goals for 2013.

I've started some initial musings on my blog spot. Add yours? http://megevonne.blogspot.com/

In 2012: I didn't write as well as I could. I veered from my ultimate path to become a better writer. Too often, I concentrated on market trends. I lost sight of some items that I'd learned before, but let slip. For example, I realized that my wonderful new WiP has an MC that doesn't change? How could I have missed that? Also my output wasn't nearly as fruitful as in years past. I think I lost my focus.

For 2013:
1. Editing goals: seek beauty and worth in my words; scrap the rest.
2. Growth goals: read the work of others that contain beauty and worth and do this as often as I write.
3. Learning goals: dig deeply into good closings, learn how to craft them, learn how to make the wonderful.

And that's just a start...  What are your thoughts on 2012? What are your goals for 2013?
 

[Quantus]

Well, I got back to writing in general, so thats a good thing.  But as I often do I got overindulgent in building huge and complex worlds, and while I enjoyed the research and the crafting of said worlds, it was at the expense of actually getting scenes out of my head and on paper.  My plan is to spend as little time as possible on world building, using what I have already developed, and not spend more time on that aspect until I have the actual stories drafted out.  Getting words on the page is ironically the hardest thing for me.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Hrrm.  In 2012, lots of life happened, and I ensuingly wrote less than some years.

- last third of TIWTBWO #2, bounced off test-readers and a couple of edit passes
- very minor edits to TISBWO #1 for continuity.
- first quarter or so of TIWTBWO #3 written and has had one through pass already
- edit pass on TISBWO and sent off; another one requested
- one edit pass on TISBWO prequel done, then it all fell apart at the end; half-way through another.

What I am happiest with accomplishing there is that TIWTBWO #2 has been a successful tautly plotted complex mystery for a number of readers, and won over a couple who had not much liked the first one, strongly prefer others of my projects, and were approaching reading it as a duty.

My plans for between now and the end of 2013 are:
- finish TISBWO prequel pass and send off
- then finish TISBWO edit pass and send off
- while doing these, as much work on TIWTBWO #3 as is necessary to keep my sanity
- after doing these and while awaiting responses, finish TIWTBWO #3. Which will likely be the bulk of the work, as I suspect that of taking about 100-120kwords new text and there will doubtless be edit passes involved.
- then dig out Really Big Backburner Project, read through it again, edit the last section, send to the loyal handful of betas who have been waiting for this to be complete since 1996, and decide whether I am ever going to do anything with it.

Technically, what i am looking to improve specifically is a) take the tighter plots with more cross-linking aspect of #2 and apply it to the larger scale of #3 and b) continue trying to expand the range of characters I am able to do.

[LizW65]

2012: Self-published my mystery novel after trying and failing at the conventional route. I'm happy and very proud of it, if I do say so myself--I really think it's one of my more stellar accomplishments.
I'm now working and re-working the sequel.
2013: Finish the sequel plus two shorter tie-in works.