October Goals

September was not my best month for meeting my writing goals. One nice thing about having monthly goals, though, is that every month is a chance to start anew.

With that in mind, here are my goals for the month of October.

1) Keep my Daily Writing Chain going. - It's now 13 months long and growing. Even on days when things have been rough for one reason or another, I've kept it going. I feel good about that, but it's also an ongoing thing. So, as always, it's my top goal for the month.

2) Write and submit one brand-new story. - This is my regular month Write 1/Sub 1 goal. Though I didn't have it listed as a specific goal for September, I did accomplish it with my submission to Malfeasance Occasional.

3) Revise and submit one pending story each week. - For these purposes I'm viewing weeks as being Monday to Sunday, so my goal will be to get a story out the door no later than this coming Sunday and then to do the same thing each week. If I meet this goal fully, I'll get four stories out the door from my "backlog." Last month I had aimed to revise six stories and got exactly zero done. I think that goal felt "too big" especially once I got behind on things. This new goal gives me a chance to succeed (or fail) every week, which I think should help me avoid another goose egg at the very least.

4) Submit a story for the Codex Halloween contest. - This, combined with goal #3, means that I need to get a fair amount of writing time in this week since the Halloween contest closes Sunday morning.

5) On 10/31 have two non-time-sensitive blog posts written and ready to post on a day when I'm not otherwise able to post something "new." - I'd had this goal on my lists earlier this year and was doing okay with it for a while. However, I've gotten out of the habit. Since keeping to my regular blogging schedule is something I value, I want to get back to having a bit of a reserve.

6) Read thirty short stories. - Whether I do that specifically by keeping up with #storyeachnight (essentially) every night or otherwise. Reading regularly is helpful to my development as a writer, and as such it makes sense to list it explicitly as a goal.