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June 8, 2009

Developing as a Storyteller

Of late, I’ve been thinking of myself less as a writer and more as a storyteller whose medium is the written form. A subtle difference perhaps, but one that allows me to focus on the story itself and less on the nuts & bolts of its construction.

A few months ago, I’d fallen into the trap of thinking that I was only getting work done when I was writing (as opposed to world or character building), which meant I would jump into a new story without taking the time to properly ground myself. But by thinking in terms of story, I’ve allowed myself to dabble a bit at the beginning and get a rough framework in place. Not an outline, but rather a more fully thought-out world to play in.

To that end, I’ve started broadening my horizons by looking at other forms of storytelling, namely screenwriting. While Hollywood holds little allure for me, I’m very interested in how movies handle storytelling, and what of that I can apply to writing.

A screenwriter is hosting a free seminar next Monday on story design, and while I’ve never heard of him, he’s had more success than me, so I’m sure I can pick-up a few pointers that translate. Details are below in blue (my highlighting).

Monday, June 15th, 5:30 pm Pacific
6:30pm Mountain / 7:30pm Central / 8:30pm Eastern

Learn the Method Chris used to sell his screenplay for $750,000!!

TO REGISTER FOR THE FREE TELE-SEMINAR:
Go to:
www.screenplaybyphone.com/blasts/cs

YOU'RE INVITED...
TO A COMPLIMENTARY TELESEMINAR CONFERENCE CALL!

Learn a new method of story design that is four times better, easier and more helpful than the three-act structure. Movies are shot on reels and each one tells its own part of the story -- like a chapter in a novel! Together they add up to the perfect screenplay! And it works in any genre! Call in and see! Learn the method Chris Soth use d to sell his thesis screenplay FIRESTORM for three-quarters of a million dollars -- while he was still a student in grad school!

This is Chris Soth's SIGNATURE LECTURE on The Mini-Movie Method, the one his ebook, seminar, and DVDs are ALL about - the one that's changing the way stories are structured.

Whether you write Screenplays, Novels, Graphic Novels, Comic Books, Webisodes, or even Video Games...

In short, if you are ANY KIND OF A STORYTELLER, you can learn to:

  • SEE your whole story as a movie before you start!
  • CREATE the winning "sequences", each a MINI-MOVIE all its own!
  • CAPTURE the attention of your audience - and KEEP IT!
  • STENGTHEN every beat of your story to keep it CAPTIVATING!

Join us on the call and learn the MINI-MOVIE METHOD Chris learned at USC that sold his thesis screenplay for $750K!!!

April 17, 2009

Roll Your Own Word Counters

Word counters are a cool way to keep your audience updated on the progress of your manuscript(s). Naturally, in order to keep my audience of one updated (hi mom!), I decided to create my own.

You can get really fancy with these, using custom graphics to create a unique look & feel. I decided to keep mine simple, for two reasons: ease of use and ease of extensibility. Here are the steps to add counters to your own site and customize them.

Note – no coding is required for this. You’ll have to do a bit of HTML tweaking if you want to change what it looks like (color, size, etc), but the code that actually runs this can simply be copy & pasted and left alone.

One other point – I’m using this through Blogger right now, but it can easily be extended for use on your own site or other platforms (WordPress, LiveJournal, etc). You may have to tweak some of these steps to get this to work on another platform, but the concepts remain the same.

How’s It Work?

The file is composed of two distinct sections:

  • JavaScript to calculate the percentage complete and update the visual indicator (aka – the meter) accordingly. This is the code, and does not need to be modified.
  • HTML to display the word count, percentage complete, and the meter, and to format said items. This is the piece you will need to modify to display your manuscript’s title, total word count, current word count, if nothing else.

We’ll look at the HTML first. I’ve highlighted the key items requiring input below – these are the places where you will need to input your manuscript’s name, and the word counts (current and target). Everything else, you can ignore, including the completion percentage (which is calculated for you by the code).

<div id="manuscript" style=" text-align:center; width: 100px;">
<span id="manuscriptTitle">Fantasy Novel</span>
<br />
<div style="background-color:#E8E8E8; width:100px; height:10px; text-align:left;">
<div id="meter" style="background-color:#6666FF; width:0px; height:10px;">&nbsp;</div>
</div>
<div style="width:100px; text-align:center; ">
<span id="currentWordCount">12000</span>
<span> / </span>
<span id="targetWordCount">80000</span>
<br />
<span id="completionPercentage"></span>
</div>
<br />
</div id="manuscript_end">

One other point – it is critical that you don’t modify the names of any of the IDs (manuscripts, currentWordCount, etc) as the code looks for these.

What Do I Do?

Putting these on your site is pretty easy.

If You Are Using Blogger (or any site that allows you to add Gadgets):

  1. Edit your blog Layout
  2. Choose the Page Elements tab (again, assuming Blogger here)
  3. Click ‘Add a Gadget’
  4. Choose HTML/JavaScript
  5. Copy the code (JavaScript & HTML, file is at bottom of this post) and paste into the Blogger gadget window.
  6. Within the gadget window, modify the HTML section to reflect your current manuscript(s).
  7. Save the gadget, and then click the Edit HTML tab on the Layout page.
  8. Locate the <body> tag (best way is simply to search - Ctrl + F). Change to <body onLoad="Load()">, which calls our new JavaScript code.
  9. Save

If You Can Modify the HTML itself (i.e. you have your own site and probably know what you’re doing)

  1. Access your page’s source code
  2. Copy the JavaScript portion of the file below (including the starting <script> tag and the ending </script> tag). Conversely, you can dump this into a separate .js file and just link to your site.
  3. Paste the JavaScript within the <head> of your current page.
  4. Copy the HTML portion of the file below.
  5. Paste the HTML somewhere within your page’s <body>.
  6. Modify the HTML section to reflect your current manuscript(s).
  7. Modify the <body> tag to call the new JavaScript code - <body onLoad="Load()">
  8. Save

Multiple Manuscripts In Progress

If, like me, you have several manuscripts in various forms of completion, adding a second counter (or third, etc) is pretty easy. Just copy and paste another section of HTML, and modify the second occurrence (or third, etc) accordingly.

Modifying

So you’ve got your handy-dandy word counters up and are pretty excited, except they look just like mine. You want to put your own unique stamp on them.

Color

Within the HTML section, locate the background-color attribute. You’ll find two of them – the first is the background of the meter, the color that reflects the words remaining (mine is a light gray). The second occurence of background-color is the color that reflects words written.

You’ll notice that what follows each of these attributes are not color names, but some funky text - #E8E8E8 and #6666FF, respectively. These are the hex values associated with the displayed colors.

Confused? Don’t be. Just refer to this color chart and copy/paste in the hex value of the new color you want.

Text Size

This one is even easier to change. Just look for the attribute called font-size. There are two of them – one for the manuscript title, and one for the word counts and percentage. Default is to 8 pt (which means point-size). Just change the number (upward or downward) to make the text bigger or smaller.

Fatness

Does your word counter need to go on a diet? Look for the height attribute – there’s only one. I prefer a slim meter, so the default is height:10px (pixels). Just like the Text size, changing this number will make your meter grow or shrink.

Length – not so fast

You may notice the width attribute and decide you want to change it from the default value of 100px. Don’t. The code assumes 1 pixel = 1 percentage point. Therefore, if you tweak this value, it will throw off your meter. I may come back and modify the code for this at some point, but for now, it is what it is.

Gimme the Code

JavaScript comes first, followed by the HTML.

<script type="text/javascript">
var completionPercentage = new Array();
var arrayCounter = 0;
function Load()
{
   var collectionDIV = document.getElementsByTagName('div');
   var collectionSPAN = document.getElementsByTagName('span');
   var currentWordCount = 0;
   var targetWordCount = 0;
   var counter = 0;
   //loop for the count & max values and for the percentage field (to set)
   for (var i=0; i < collectionSPAN.length; i++)
   {
       if(collectionSPAN[i].id == 'currentWordCount')
         {
             currentWordCount = collectionSPAN[i].innerHTML;
         }
         else if(collectionSPAN[i].id == 'targetWordCount')
         {
             targetWordCount = collectionSPAN[i].innerHTML;
         }
         else if(collectionSPAN[i].id == 'completionPercentage')
         {
             collectionSPAN[i].innerHTML = CalculateCount(currentWordCount, targetWordCount);
         }
   }

   //loop DIVs collection looking for meters
   for (var i=0; i < collectionDIV.length; i++)
   {      
       if(collectionDIV[i].id == 'meter')
       {
          collectionDIV[i].style.width = completionPercentage[counter] + 'px';
          counter++;
      }
   }                                
}

function CalculateCount(current, target)
{
    //generate percentage
    var percentage = (current / target) * 100;
    //formatting - round to 2 decimal places
    var rounded = Math.round(percentage * 100) / 100;

    //store value to array for later moving the meter
    completionPercentage[arrayCounter] = rounded;
    arrayCounter++;
    //set the text field to the rounded percentage, with formatting applied
    var formatted = "(" + rounded + "%)";
    //return result for displaying
    return formatted;
}
</script>
    
    <div id="manuscript" style="font-size:8pt; text-align:center; width: 100px;">
        <span id="manuscriptTitle">Fantasy Novel</span>
        <br />
        <div style="background-color:#E8E8E8; width:100px; height:10px; text-align:left;">
        <div id="meter" style="background-color:#6666FF; width:0px; height:10px;">&nbsp;</div>
        </div>
        <div style="width:100px; text-align:center; font-size:8pt;">
          <span id="currentWordCount">12000</span>
          <span> / </span>
          <span id="targetWordCount">80000</span>
          <br />
          <span id="completionPercentage"></span>
        </div>
        <br />
    </div id="manuscript_end">

Questions / Issues?

Post here and I’ll get back with you.

April 13, 2009

The Future of Writing

As someone who is working toward publication, the current state of the industry is pretty sobering. Publishers are taking a bath, and the major booksellers are closing stores and laying off employees. I’ve yet to see data on this, but I’m certain publishers are buying less books, if not in general, than specifically from first-time authors.

Against this economic backdrop, you have the push toward the electronic mediums. I’m not going to debate the pros/cons of digital vs paper here, and I don’t think traditional books are going away. But given what is happening to the newspapers, it seems fairly clear that paper is a dying medium. Costs, environmental concerns, and plain old convenience will continue to hoist the digital banners. Blogs, podcasts, eBooks are, if not the future, certainly part of it.

Given all this, what’s an unaccomplished writer to do? How do we fit in?

  1. Don’t worry about what you can’t control. The only thing you can do is write. Keep at it, and know the markets will be there when you’re ready, but…
  2. Don’t count on traditional publishers to be waiting, checkbook open when you finish your opus. Tales abound of professional, full-time writers who can no longer live off writing alone. What’s to say that you, a relative unknown, will be?
  3. Take your career into your own hands. Get your name out there. More, get your work out there. Podcast your novel. Or release it via your blog. One of the growing trends is the publisher pursuing the writer, who already has buzz and a built-in audience. It’s safer for them, and its something I think we’ll continue to see more of.
    1. As a corollary to this, once you have an audience, you can direct-market to them, cutting out the publishing middle man altogether. You’ll reduce your target audience, sure, but you’ll make drastically more money per story.

There’s a lot of uncertainty these days, specifically in the publishing world. You can let these bigger issues paralyze you, or you can figure out how to take advantage of the Internet and make your own destiny.

March 30, 2009

The Genesis of Indiana Jones

I’m an idea guy. I love the thrill that comes from sitting with pen and pad and just going to town, seeing where your imagination takes you. So it was a huge thrill when I found this blog, which talks about creating the Indiana Jones character and the story (mostly the first movie, but some of the ideas spill into the second & third parts of the trilogy). Lucas and Spielberg, in their heyday.. man, what I would’ve given…

The blog post itself is a nice, cliff-notes style recap of the artifact itself, a 125-page whopper. I especially appreciated the insights on starting from the character first and letting him influence the direction and shape the story took on.

As someone who grew up on Dr. Jones’ adventures, this grants new, deeper insight. For instance – I totally missed that Marion was still a girl when she’d had her first relationship with Indy. Sure, I recall the dialog, but even watching it a few years ago on DVD, I’d just assumed she was 18 or something at the time. But they are really talking about a lot longer passage of time here. This really drives home the fact that there always must be more going on in the story than what is shown. Think through the relationships and let them influence the story's direction.

For anyone interested in the craft of storytelling, this is a must-read.

March 24, 2009

Free – Edgar Allen Poe Shorts

I’ve been a subscriber to daily lit for a while now (check it out if you haven’t – they delivery 1000-word, bite-sized chunks of literature to your email or RSS reader daily.. lots of cool free stuff).

Saw this on their site today.. http://www.dailylit.com/books/3-short-reads-by-edgar-allan-poe

Not a horror guy myself, but as someone actively working on short stories, I’m well aware of Poe’s reputation. I signed up to see what I could pickup from reading his material.

March 9, 2009

Book Report for March

So a funny thing happened this month.. I was listening to an audio book completely unrelated to writing (or so I thought) and ended up deciding that it worked rather well as, if not a review of the craft, at least a commentary on the life of a would-be writer.

The book in question is John C. Maxwell’s Talent Is Never Enough. I picked it up as something to make me for effective in my day job (as a mild-mannered IT manager), but as I listened along, I was struck at how well the lessons mapped to writing (and, larger, life in general).

Some key points that Maxwell emphasizes:

  • Don’t focus on strengthening your weaknesses – spend that time instead on your strengths.

    Eric extrapolates: To be a successful writer, you have to be well-rounded. You need to know dialog, plot, character, etc. However, if you are especially strong at characterization but weak at plotting, focus on character.

  • The choices you make creates the effectiveness for turning talents into results.

    Eric extrapolates: I see this every day, in the choices I make. It’s always easy to choose not to write… there’s always games to play, books to read, TV to watch. Other, seemingly more interesting, things to do. But by choosing to write, by choosing to spend my limited resources (time) on the craft, I am making myself more effective as a writer, and thus increasing the odds of publication.

  • The key choices you make, apart from your natural talent, will set you apart from those that have talent alone.

    Eric extrapolates: Bottom line – talent alone is not enough.

Maxwell further breaks this down into what he considers the 13 key choices a person can make to maximize their talent. My commentary follows each.

  1. Belief lifts your talent.

    Before you can make something happen, you have to believe in it. The mind must go first. Besides – if you don’t believe you can do something, why do you bother? It only amounts to a lot of thrashing about, wasting energy. I am a firm believer in the power of dreams. Let yourself see the dream. Run your tongue across it. Breathe deeply of it. Believe it will happen.

  2. Passion energizes your talent.

    Here’s a gut check for you: think about your current work in progress. Are you excited about it? If not – why? Wrong genre, flat characters, uninspired plot? Get to the root of why you are writing this story (or, larger, why you are writing at all). Find the passion, corral it, then let it loose onto the page. If you’re not excited about what you’re creating, how do you expect me, the reader, to be?

  3. Initiative activates your talent.

    Are you sitting back, dreaming about what it is to be a writer? A certain amount of that is okay – it’s important to find motivation where you can. But, do you go beyond thinking and get to doing? Take the initiative to get moving.

  4. Focus directs your talent.

    How many projects do you have running concurrently? While it’s probably okay to have a few projects running in different states – rough first draft, second revision, final polish – the more you divert your attention, the less you accomplish. This is a big struggle for me – I tend to have lots of balls in the air, which means I make little progress on any one thing. As Bruce Lee put it – “It’s not the daily increase, but the daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.”

  5. Preparation positions your talent.

    The easy comparison here is outlining, which I don’t do. So for the outliners, there you go. For those like myself (the stumblers), this looks a little different. Character sketches. If or What Else exercises. Often times, much of my first draft is an exercise in preparing for the real deal – finding voice, discovering character, etc.

  6. Practice sharpens your talent.

    In my opinion, very little attention is paid to practicing the craft itself. We just want to jump in and create something. Why waste effort practicing when we can create something? Writing is the only art form I can think of where practice is so readily ignored. But there is much to be gained from approaching something – situation, character, dialog – in a focused, bite-sized chunk and not being distracted with other, related, things.

  7. Perseverance sustains your talent.

    It is perseverance, not talent, that is the most-touted virtue of professional writers, followed by luck. Talent is a distant third. To me, this is encouragement – if you work hard and stick with it, eventually, you should make it (where luck comes in).

  8. Courage tests your talent.

    Writing is the most difficult thing I’ve ever attempted. Just getting my butt in the chair some days is tough. I end up playing mental games, psyching myself out to just get started, because I know that starting is the hard part. Once I’ve committed to it, sticking with it is easy (that’s not to say I don’t get distracted sometimes). In these moments of quiet struggle, it is courage that gets me writing. Courage that I have talent, that I can make it. That I’m not just wasting my time.

  9. Teach-ability expands your talent.

    It’s often said that the act of teaching is a good learning tool for the teacher, reinforcing key foundational concepts and providing opportunities for newer, deeper understanding (of course, the inverse is - those that can’t do, teach). While I haven’t tried to teach a write course, I have seen some of this come into play in forums I participate in, critiques of other people’s work, and even with this blog.

  10. Character protects your talent.

    There are no shortcuts in life, or in writing. Don’t think you can copy someone else’s work and get away with it. It will eventually catch up with you. That whole karma thing.

  11. Relationships influence your talent.

    Like every other profession, having the right relationships can help you go a long way in your writing career. It is definitely a case of ‘who you know’. Editors, Pros, Agents. It’s important not only to get your name out there, but make sure it’s in the right context. It won’t help your career if everyone thinks you’re a insufferable jerk.

  12. Responsibility strengthens your talent.

    Writing is a job, just like any other. If you’re like me, it’s an unpaid job, but you still need to put in the time. Be responsible. Set a schedule, and show up ready to work. That’s the only way you will ever make any headway.

  13. Teamwork multiplies your talent.

    Even in such a lonely profession as writing, if you make it into print, you do so with the help of others. Sure – they’re you words, but they’ve been scoured and scrubbed by others. Sure – you have a nice contract, but your agent took care of the negotiating. And don’t forget your family, who put up with your crazy writing schedule and gave you space when you needed to work.

February 23, 2009

Better Writing Through Diversity

As someone singularly-focused on making that step into publication (and beyond!), it’s easy to lose sight of the craft itself, of the foundational aspects that every writer needs to have in his bag of tricks. Things like Dialogue, Characterization, Exposition, etc.

All of these things should come into play in the normal course of a story. However, I have a tendency to spend more time on the areas I am comfortable with and enjoy (Dialogue) and less on the parts I don’t care for (Descriptions - yuck). I try to force the issue in my stories, but find that the confines of the story don’t give me enough room to grow.

To that point, I’m going to start doing different kinds of writing… I’m not talking Fantasy vs Sci-Fi, but rather, short stories vs poetry. Or screenplays. Here’s my thinking:

  • poetry: improve my descriptive prowess and add a lyrical quality to my writing
  • screenplays / comics: writing for the visual arts places a heavy emphasis on dialogue and characterization through action

The idea of writing a screenplay or comic book is intoxicating, something I’ve always wanted to do. Poetry… not so much, but I feel it’s necessary to introduce some different kinds of fiber into my writing diet. Still.. maybe I’ll put-off the poetry lessons for a bit longer… I’m suddenly dying to pen my own superhero comic.

February 16, 2009

Book Report for February

Continuing with my goal to read a writing-related book each month and post my thoughts here… I just concluded Damon Knight’s Creating Short Fiction. Like the book I read for January, I snagged this one at the library.

I’d heard mention of Knight’s how-to on writing several times over the years – in other books, forums, etc. The context was always positive, many considering it a must-have, if not the book to own on crafting short stories. So going in I had high hopes.

Boy was I disappointed.

It’s not that it is a bad book by any means. Knight knows what he’s talking about, and I respect the fact that he had a long career. He must’ve been doing something right.

It’s not that I didn’t learn anything from him either. My biggest problem with the book is that Knight’s approach to writing is overly formulistic, to the point of drawing elaborate diagrams, reducing art into equation.

As someone who writes from the gut, I had a hard time plodding through the material. Writing may not be the sexiest of topics, yet I always feel a thrill when browsing the shelves for my next how-to on the craft. I love to read about writing. But though I finished the book (once committed, I rarely walk away from something), my excitement died before the quarter mark.

Still, I always enjoy hearing from those who have done it before, and well. The portion I valued most was one of Knight’s published shorts annotated with the author’s comments about what he was thinking at the time, decisions he made and why, etc.

Worth a read? I have a hard time saying anything on writing is not worth reading. Let’s just say your mileage will very based on your approach to the craft. 

Worth a purchase? Not for me.

February 10, 2009

Kindle v 2.0

A new version of Amazon’s Kindle is coming. Version 2.0 delivers longer battery life and a huge increase in storage capacity – from 185MB to 2GB. However, the Kindle’s Achilles heel remains – the whopper price tag - $359.

I love the concept of the Kindle, and the idea that you can shop, download, and start reading in a matter of seconds is awesome. I also like how Amazon is forcing a lower price scheme for eBooks - $9.99 a pop. There is no reason that eBooks should be more than $10.. one can even make a case that they should be more in the $5 range, but as an aspiring author, I’ll not complain too much. Still, price is a major factor – the price of eBook readers (and the content itself) is going to have to come down quite a bit before widespread adoption is possible. For now, for me, I’ll stick with my PDA.

The digital revolution is coming, there can be no doubt. It will be interesting seeing how the industry changes as a result of things like the Kindle. As someone looking to break into the field, I’m paying close attention, hoping my dream of becoming a full-time author isn’t sent careening into the wastes like a lonely tumbleweed.

February 2, 2009

Quick Update

Just a quick update… got my entry out for the Spectra Pulse contest right on time. I actually had the story done two weeks in advance, which let me sit on it for a bit before coming back for the inevitable tweaks. Luckily, the story held-up at second & third glance. I hate it when I go in hoping for cosmetic tweaks and am instead faced with a major demo project.

Next up – I need to brush-off my NaNo novel. Gosh, has it been 2 months already? I haven’t even looked at it since early December. More & more, I have the feeling that I need to go back and do some documentation to support the thing – a rough outline and a bible to keep track of who’s who.

Also on the horizon – I have 3 contests coming due within about 2 weeks of each other: WotF (March 31), Jim Baen’s Memorial (April 1), and Parsec (April 15). Yikes… guess I better skip the novel for now and keep pushing shorts out.

January 26, 2009

Book Report for January

One of my goals for this year is to read a new book on writing every month. I just finished Janet Evanovich’s turn, How I Write.

Several things attracted me to this book when I was browsing in the library – for one, it’s a thin book. Quick reads = good. The other - as a wanna-be, I’m naturally drawn to anything I can get from the pros that describes their process, as though I can absorb a bit of their good fortune through the pages and apply it to my own writing life.

I’ve never read Evanovich before but knew the name. The main thing that struck me was her personality, which comes across as fun and self-depreciating. It also helps keep the material light and moving forward.

Anyone that’s been doing this for any significant amount of time will find some of the material almost elementary. For instance, nearly an entire chapter is devoted to describing the different PoVs and when/how to employ them. No real harm, I just skipped over these sections.

For me, the strength of this book was the chapter on characterization, and reading the excerpts from her Plum series. Simply put, Evanovich is a master of characterization, and anyone who needs to grow in this area (read: anyone doing fiction work) should take a look at her techniques.

Worth a read? Yes

Worth a purchase? Nah – pickup a copy at your local library and thank me later.

On a side note, Evanovich picked up at least one regular reader out of this. No, not me – I’m more of a Fantasy/Sci-Fi guy, with a liberal dose of King/Koontz. My wife, however, is an avid reader of character-driven thrillers, and this is right up her alley.

January 19, 2009

2009 Goals- Bigger & Better

It’s a new year, and in that spirit, it’s time for some new writing-related goals. I’m a big believer in setting goals and, more specifically, in writing those goals down. There is something tangible about putting your thoughts down on paper, and if nothing else, having them staring back at me guilts me into paying them mind.

Here’s my focus for 2009. You’ll notice some repeats from last year (shakes fist). You may also notice that, despite generally missing on my goals last year, I actually have more goals this year.

More, you say?

Yes, Yoda. I can feel the Force. I’m ready.

Too old. Yes, he is too old to begin the training.

I’m not afraid.

You should be…

Put a sock in it, muppet. Here’s the list, with dates… I’ll be updating this list periodically as new / cool contests and anthologies pop up.

  1. Enter the Spectra Pulse Short Fiction contest. Deadline is Jan 31.
  2. Submit to WotF every quarter… March 31, June 30, Sept 30, Dec 31.
  3. Enter the Jim Baen’s Memorial contest. Deadline April 1.
  4. Enter the Parsec contest. Deadline April 15.
  5. Complete the first draft of my novel (from NaNo ‘08) by May 1.
  6. Complete NaNoWriMo 2009 by Nov 30.
  7. Shop novel to agents by Dec 1.
  8. Sell 4 short stories by Dec 31.
  9. Complete second novel (first draft) by Dec 31.

Though not strictly writing-based, here are some of my other goals for 2009:

  • blog once a week
  • complete a crafting exercise (and post here) once a week
  • write 5000 words / week
  • online presence: participate in forums (WotF, Zeotrope, Hatrack)
  • critique one story / week (critters)
  • read one writing-related book / month

January 12, 2009

2008 Goals - Recap

Another year is in the books… another year wasted. Sorta.

2008 brought my first (and only) writing cred, but it’s not much to write home about… a non-publication Honorable Mention in WotF is great for a day, but really means nothing.

My goals for 2008 were as follows… included in blue is how I landed on meeting them:

  1. Submit to WotF for every quarter. Update: only met this by 50%, submitting for the first two quarters of 2008, but posting no-shows for the final two. On a good note, my HM came from only my second submission, but on a downer, I let two chances to improve on that performance go by. Boo. I could go into excuses, but I’ll spare you the gory details.
  2. Complete the NaNoWriMo challenge. Update: sorta, kinda. Call it 50%. I ended the month of November with ~48k words of my novel written. But, I realized I was only about halfway through the story. The point of NaNo is to complete a novel… oops.
  3. Sell a short. Update: nope. :(

All-in-all, I fell like 2008 was fairly successful. I fell short on a couple of things, but also hit some other milestones. I currently have 7 stories making the rounds. I passed 250k total words written since I started on this crazy ride a few years back. I took two online writing classes and did some work-shopping.

Am I disappointed? Sure – the WotF goal especially stings. But, I’m happy, and in the end, that’s all that really matters.