There’s a lot I want to do writing-wise this year, In addition to other private-life related goals, but before we get into what I want to do this year, let’s look at what I did last year.
2019 in the Rear View
2019 was a good writing year for me. I feel like I was able to push myself further than I have before and that I grew a lot as a writer because of that. I focused not on expanding my knowledge base, but rather on taking my knowledge acquired over the last few years of workshopping and applying it to my work.
In terms of the work I did, I rewrote and re-outlined, parts of a novel I’ve had in the works for a while and that continues to be in the works because it’s complicated and I’m taking my time so I don’t screw it up. I also completed outlining and drafted a second novel that I sent to my writing group for feedback. I queried a novel and received many lovely rejections on it. I also challenged myself to write more short stories that you can read about here. And then in November, I wrote fifty thousand words on a novella project that I’m pretty happy with.
By the end of 2019, I had 34 queries under my belt and 47 short story submissions. Most of those, I received rejections as a response. And yes, that’s a lot of rejection in a single year, but I feel stronger as a person and a writer and my motivation to succeed as a writer only seems to be further fueled by each rejection I receive.
Submissions
In 2020, I want to keep submitting things, whether they be novels or short stories or job applications or what have you; I need to keep putting myself out there. To that end, I want to send at least one short story submission per week this year, and once I’ve finished the novel I’m revising, I want to send it to at least fifty agents.
Novels
I have a few novel projects in the works. One, which I call “the pirate story” is currently under revision. Once it’s revised to my satisfaction, I’ll send it to Beta readers, revise it quick-like, and then query it. I’m feeling fairly optimistic about this particular story at the moment.
I’ve also got “the complicated novel” that I mentioned above, which I’d like to do another rewrite on this year, though that’s low on the priority list because I want to do it right, not fast.
I also want to get another one or two novels at least in the outlining/worldbuilding phases of development. They’re stories I’ve had bopping around in my head for a few years now and 2020 feels like the year to put at least one of them down on paper.
I also have a NaNoWriMo project picked out for November.
And finally, on the novel-front, I’ve decided to make some changes to the novel I was querying last year. So, in between all the drafting and revising, I’ll take some time to tweak that story and bring it up to snuff with the writer I am today.
Short Stories
As if all that novel writing wasn’t enough, I also want to continue to develop my short story writing. I’ve found short stories to be an incredibly freeing form and want to continue to explore and push myself in that regard. To that end, I’m going to do another 30 submissions in 30 days challenge this year, in addition to continuing to refine and submit the short stories that I’ve already been working on this year.
I know these are altogether quite an ambitious goal and I don’t have total confidence that I’ll be able to achieve everything on this list, but if I don’t dream big and push myself hard, what’s the point?
Thanks so much for reading.
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