Goals - March and April 2013

I got lazy in March. I really don't know any other way to put it. I let myself be way too lax on productivity and though I did a halfway decent job of keeping stories out on submission, that's really about the only aspect of my writing that I kept on top of.

I said a while back that if I got bad about staying productive when I moved away from the Daily Writing Chain that I would feel a need to re-institute it. (I wrote about the Daily Writing Chain extensively in "Write Every Day.") I'm putting myself on notice. A rough April and the Chain is coming back. That's not a threat to myself or a means of punishing myself. It would be a way of recognizing that without it I wasn't sticking to the discipline I need to have if I want to build a successful writing career.

So, with all of that in mind, let's see how things looked for March. My goals were:

1. Submit three stories for the first time. - I did this.
   
2. Read thirty short stories. - I didn't just fail at this, I bombed it. In impressive fashion. 6/30.
3. Reply to all Kazka Press flash fiction submissions by the 25th. - This one went fine.
4. Make fifteen submissions of non-reprint stories. - I succeeded at this, though just.
5. Outline and get at least 4000 words written on a novelette for general submission. - I haven't gotten off to a good start on this goal. I need to put some thinking time in on it because I'd like to at least get an outline put together before the end of the month. 

So, anything that had to do with submissions -- either making or processing them -- went fine. Everything else? Not so much...

But March is over and it's time to move on to April. So here are some new goals:

1. Submit three stories for the first time. - This is so I can keep moving forward on my goal for stories submitted for the year.
   
2. Read seven short stories each Monday to Sunday week. - When I got behind last month, I think I felt "heck with it." This way I get a fresh start every week. We'll see if that helps.
3. Reply to all Kazka Press flash fiction submissions by the 24th. - I'm keeping this as pretty much a standing goal. It gives about a week for turnaround on the back end with contracts, etc. before publication.
4. Make twenty submissions of non-reprint stories. - Keeping the stories out the door is important for getting them accepted and published.
5. Outline and get at least 4000 words written on a novelette for general submission. - Yes, this is back again. I really want to stretch out some and the only way I'll accomplish that is by putting forth the effort.
6. Write one non-flash story which is NOT inspired by any pre-existing prompt/theme/etc. - Maybe this one is a bit unnecessary, but I feel like an awful lot of my recent writing has been driven by external prompts and themes. I'd like to make sure I'm writing the things that are important to me and while I basically think I've done fine with that while working a lot with prompts and themes, I'd like to encourage myself to do some self-starting as well this month.
7. Blog every Monday about my goal progress. -  I think I'm missing some of the accountability I set up for myself with more frequent check-ins last month. I hope this will help me out.

That's a lot of goals for the month, but -- as always -- I am hopeful that I will be successful with them.