Monday, April 2, 2012

March Goal Wrap-Up, April Goal Setting

With a new month here, it's time to do a final check-in on my March goals and set my April goals.

1) Read my first draft of "Adrift" and create something akin to a "beat sheet" for it. - Didn't happen.
2) Have a short story revising day where I get at least three stories into a form where I am ready to send them out for beta or submission. - I did it. Now, one of the stories I've since decided needs more work, but at the time I honestly thought it was ready for beta. I know I should be trying to avoid getting backlogged, but this certainly felt like a decent approach for if I am backlogged.
3) Write 7,500 words of new fiction including at least one new short story. - Word count was not met, multiple flash (short-short) stories were completed, though.
4) Keep all my writing routines -- Seinfeld Chain, revised blogging schedule, etc. - Done. I called this my top goal for the month, and I'm satisfied with having met this goal.
5) On 3/31, have one non-time-sensitive blog post written and ready for future use on a day when I'm not able to post something "new." - Not going to give myself credit for this one; I've got two mostly completed, but neither is "ready to hit post" which would be the standard I'd want for this goal. Close, but not quite.
6) Write and submit one or more short stories for the first time. - Done.
7) Decide if I am going to attend Marcon (a local science-fiction convention) in April or not. - Done -- though I'm not going to go.
8) Complete a first draft of my non-fiction project. - Done and sent to someone for a read-through to see what initial feedback I can get on it.

Very good, all things considered.

My April goals will be:
1) Keep all my writing routines -- Daily Writing Chain (aka Seinfeld Chain), blogging schedule, etc. - One addition I'm going to make to this, that I'd been considering in the past. I'm going to add an option to my Daily Writing Chain to spend 45 focused minutes on revisions. The key word there is focused -- if I'm just half-assing it (to be blunt) then it shouldn't count. If I look back on this after a month and think that it's turned into a way to goof off instead of getting real work done, then this option will get the ax. I also plan to see how many days that's my qualifying activity for the chain.
2) Write and submit one or more short stories for the first time. - My basic monthly "Write 1/Sub 1" goal.
3) Make revisions to my non-fiction project based on feedback and my own editing of it. - Self-explanatory.
4) Write 7,500 words of new fiction. - Truthfully, I'd like to make this goal bigger, but given how things have gone the last couple of months, it seems prudent to keep it at this level.
5) On 4/30, have two non-time-sensitive blog posts written and ready for future use on a day when I'm not able to post something "new." - This is pretty much a standing goal. I'm upping it from one to two, though. That would carry me through most of a week in the event of something happening that kept me from blogging.
6) Relaunch the Dissecting the Short Story series on my blog -  I talked about this some several weeks back, and I've finally started making headway on it in the last few days. If all goes well, I'll have a poll up by the end of this week for people to vote on the story they want me to dissect.

Does anyone have any interesting news from March or exciting goals for April that they'd like to share? I'd like hearing them!

2 comments:

  1. I'm so proud of you and your goals. I know March was a rough month for you. So frankly, I think you did great. And you had some amazing acceptance news :D

    The April goals all look achievable and I'll cheer you on to make them.

    I have news but none I can share quite yet! I promise I'll share as soon as I can :)

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    1. Thank you, K.T.! I'll be looking forward to hearing about your news as soon as it can be public. :)

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