Back in January I wrote a blog post listing my goals for this year. Since the year is more than halfway done I thought it would be a good time to press pause on all the stuff on my to-do list, take a look at my goals and see how I’m doing as I progress toward them. I find that if I don’t do that every now and then it’s really easy to get off track and spend a lot of time putting out fires/doing things which do not get me closer to accomplishing what I want to accomplish. I’m okay with goals changing and evolving over time, but I don’t want to fail to reach them just because I became distracted 🙂
My goals for 2015:
As a writer:
- Self-publish all my old ‘Steffie Sherwood’ stories
I kept changing my mind about this one. I want to share those stories because I don’t want them to be ‘wasted’ by just sitting on my hard drive but many of them will require a degree of editing I just don’t have time for. I could put them out as they are, but I don’t feel like they represent the same quality of fiction I’m creating now so I’m hesitant to do that either. My current plan, subject to change of course, is to pick a couple of my favourites, bundle them together and sell them for $0.99. I haven’t gotten this done yet, but it’s on my to-do list. So I’m officially changing this goal to be ‘Format and publish a small collection of the best of my Steffie Sherwood stories.‘ Further, I’m going to set a goal of having this completed by September 1st.
- Have at least one successful ‘Writing Under Glass’ event
A writing under glass event is one where I write as publicly as I can given the circumstances. That may mean taking prompts from my blog readers, daily updates and excerpts–that sort of thing. I have yet to do this in 2015 so I’m officially declaring September my month to write under glass. I’m making it a month long event because I can’t stop everything else I’m doing, but I can minimize it so I can dedicate at least three hours a day to working on something ‘under glass’. I’m not sure yet what that will be. If Twin Magic isn’t finished by then it might be that–if it IS finished I’ll look to my Twitter followers and blog readers for feedback on what should come next.
Aside: All the pictures in this post were prompts from my first, less than successful, writing under glass event 😉
- Figure out why my tags and categories on this website have suddenly stopped working* >_<
I got this one done right away. Woohoo! I’ll take my victories where I can find ’em LOL
- Publish at least one story through a traditional publisher
My short story, Circles Within Circles, was included in the Demons, Imps and Incubi anthology published by Red Moon Romance. I’m super proud of this story and look forward to writing more with these characters. Goal accomplished.
- Complete one of my half-finished longer projects (incubus, Twin Magic or 2012’s NaNo novel)
I’ve been making steady progress on Twin Magic but just when I thought I could see the ending, the story took a bit of a turn on me and now it’s going to be a bit longer than I’d first anticipated. This goal isn’t accomplished yet, but I am on track.
- Begin adapting ### ####### for re-release
I changed my mind. As much as I like this novel, I don’t think I love it enough to adapt it for re-release, I’d rather spend my writing time working on something new. I’m abandoning this goal.
- Build a solid list of people on Twitter who I enjoy following and interacting with.
I’m still growing that list but there is a solid core of people I follow on Twitter now who I feel are *actually* people (as opposed to bots or “social media content management” platform/groups). I enjoy connecting with them and, since they haven’t blocked me yet, I am optimistic the feeling is mutual :-p
As an editor:
- Edit at least two titles for Red Moon Romance that are released this year or next
- This may include the Secret Santa anthology I’m currently working on, but bonus points if they are in addition to it 🙂
I have edited two titles for Red Moon Romance in addition to the holiday-themed anthology (Luminous Dreams and Skye Falling). Whoot! Goal accomplished. Surpassed, really. I have one other title I’m in the process of editing for RMR and have a couple manuscripts I’ve passed on up to the Editor-in-Chief for permission to publish. So I feel like it’s safe to say my editing goals have been smashed 🙂
- Successfully acquire stories to create a strong table of contents for the anthology I proposed to Red Moon Romance (hint: see picture above) and deliver the manuscript on time
This is referring to Rough Edges which is still open to submissions until Friday. So I guess I’ll be better able to evaluate how successful I was in this regard after that… still, I feel like I did everything I could to spread the word about this anthology so no matter what happens I deserve at least partial credit for that 😉
Overall I think I’m doing pretty freaking well at moving toward my goals. With a due date for the Steffie Sherwood collection and a month of Writing Under Glass scheduled I’m confident that I’ll achieve the other goals I set for myself as well.
Yay!
How about you? How is your year going so far? Do you regularly set goals for yourself? How often? How do you evaluate your progress or success? Lemme know, I’d love to hear about it 🙂
