Where Ladybugs Roar

Confessions and Passions of a Compulsive Writer

Saturday, December 31, 2011

Goals Revisited

So, it seems appropriate for the last day of the year to look back at my goals and see where I got.  Mostly, I've decided not to have goals anymore because goals are a big freaking pain. At some point, I added submit one short story per month, but it's not showing up on here... huh. 

Here are my goals from this year (I made them in March, so that's how I could cheat and add the agent thing) : 

Writing Plans for 2011:

January:
Finish Honor 7. (Completed) 
Revise Secrets of Skin and Stone. (Completed) 
Submit short stories. (Completed--both stories were accepted in the anthologies I submitted them to.  Mystery Times Ten 2011 and Undead is Not an Option.) 

February:
Get agent. (Wooo wahoo!) (Yay)

March:
Do revisions of Secrets of Skin and Stone. (Completed a set of revisions)
Work on short story project. (I probably did.) 

April:
Finish Sentinel's Run. (At some point during the year I finished Sentinel's Run.)

May:
Revision of Curse Me A Story for Sarah. (I did... but it's not quite done.) 
"Six month" scheduled revision of Versus the Bounty and The Unseen Kingdom. (Nope.)

June:
Finish My Other Life. (Nope.) (I wrote Promises of Light and Dark instead.)

July:
Finish Chosen Changeling. (Nope.)

August:
Revise Honor Series. (Crap. No.)

September:
Work on short stories or Honor 8. (Short stories... done.)

October:
Revise Scorched. (Crap. No.)
Revise Good Girls Don't Date Mutants. (I started a revision on Mutants but I haven't completed it.)

November:
NaNoWriMo novel (Completed 50K. I did five novellas instead of a novel.)

December:
Revise Sentinel's Run and begin Sentinel's Run Book Two. (Uhh. No. I did manage to submit 11 short stories during 2011.) 

I'm still working on a revision of Secrets of Skin and Stone... well, I'm waiting on Sarah with that.  I've revised it three or four or five times this year.  

Per my earlier announcement I did get a short story picked up by Entangled Publishing. 

I did actually finish writing my entry for Mystery Times Ten for 2012, but I need to do another revision on it. I could have probably powered through it and subbed it tonight, but I like eleven better than twelve anyway, so there wasn't a lot of incentive.

I fell behind in some ways this year and made some progress in others.  I read around 89 books, did five betas, and I did quite a few requested revisions for editors and for Sarah.

Outside of writing, I lost fifty lbs this year--so that's pretty cool.  

Then, there were parenting struggles and sickness and injury.  It hasn't been all fun and games.  

Next year... okay, I do have some goals.

Goals for 2012

I want to do more reviewing. I'm hoping to review all my favorite books on Amazon--just my favorite books--and just on Amazon. 

I want to lose the last fifteen lbs. to my goal. 

I want to finish revising Secrets of Skin and Stone for the last time with Sarah.

I intend to submit to Mystery Times Ten Contest by its deadline of January 31st. 

I have some short stories to revise for editors, and I'll do that.

My only specific writing goals are that I want to revise and resubmit Honor.  I want to finish my revision of Mutants.  Also, I want to do NaNoWriMo again this year. That's about it. 

In social media goals, I want to work a little harder on keeping up on my blog and creating an author website.  It's been a tough year, and I keep feeling like I'm dropping behind--in fact, I need to write a few blog posts and retro-post them in regards to Christmas and the nativity display. (I did take a bunch of pictures, and I'll post them--soon.)  I can't seem to keep up.  B got the stomach flu for Christmas and my son had it before her.  It's been... fun. 

Anyway, that's it. I hope everyone is having a good New Year's Eve.  See you next year. ; ) 

6 comments:

  1. You're amazing, girl! Seriously. I'm exhausted reading all you've done this year! :D

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  2. Your year was more productive than mine. That's for sure.

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  3. Happy Belated New Year, Wendy! Here's to a great 2012! :)

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  4. You are awesome! My goal this year is to make goals. I have a fear of making foals for fear hat I won't keep them.

    Congrats on a great year, and happy 2012!

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  5. Awww... thanks, everyone. I feel a compulsion to finish goals when I set them so I feel sorta pathetic about how many I didn't get to... despite how much I did do--that speaks more to my OCD than anything, though. That's partly why I'm not really setting many goals this year. I'm self-motivating but also pretty tough on myself.

    Miriam and Amanda, I hope 2012 is great... there is something inspiring about a fresh start and 2011 was disheartening in some ways. I hope this year brings a lot of success for all of us.

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