January 2017 Writing Goals Review
Wow, I can’t believe it’s February already. It doesn’t seem that long ago that I was writing my January writing goals.
Well, with January finished, I thought it would be a good idea to review my progress. I feel this will help me to keep on track with my 2017 writing goals.
So, what were my January writing goals? Well, my January writing goals were:
Writing Goal 1:Finish the third draft of my novel
Result: Sadly, I didn’t finish the third draft of my novel. I completely underestimated the task. I now know that editing a chapter takes a lot longer than two hours a day. I did, however, manage to complete 12 chapters, so it’s not all bad.
Writing Goal 2:Finish planning my psychological horror novella
Result: I also failed this goal. My original plan was to write a flash fiction and work on my novella in the evenings. But I forgot to consider that I would also need time to work on ideas for each flash fiction. However, I have worked on the plot, characters, and settings for my novella.
Writing Goal 3:Complete Exploring Shakespeare Future Learn course
Result: I decided to ditch this goal near the start of January because I knew I wouldn’t have time to do it. This is something I will do once I’ve finished writing the flash fictions.
Writing Goal 4:Submit four short stories
Result: Okay, I didn’t manage to submit four, but I did submit two short stories. I was working on my third, but I ran out of time. I also didn’t feel confident enough with the story to submit it. It needs a lot more work. I have, however, found somewhere else to submit the story to once I’ve finished editing it. I have also been working on new and unplanned short story submission calls which have taken up my time.
Writing Goal 5:Continue to work on story ideas for my flash fiction collection
Result: This is a goal I did achieve (I was starting to worry there). I possibly have enough ideas for the whole collection, but I plan to continue working on my ideas.
Writing Goal 6:Write the first drafts of 30 flash fictions for my flash fiction collection
Result: I failed again (this is becoming a regular occurrence). I did manage to write 17 flash fictions and type them up onto the computer, though. So far I have over 12,000 words towards my flash fiction collection, so that’s not too bad.
Writing Goal 7:Work on ideas for the next novel
Result: I only managed to make one note in my notebook for my next novel.
As you can see, I’ve not done very well with my January writing goals. I think this was down to me being over ambitious and underestimating how long things will actually take. Oh, and being easily distracted. I am proud of what I have achieved, though.
So now it’s February I have a list of new goals that I hope to achieve.
My February Writing Goals
- Finish the third draft of my novel
- Finish planning my psychological horror novella
- Continue to work on story ideas for my flash fiction collection
- Write the first drafts of 30 flash fictions for my flash fiction collection
- Work on ideas for next novel
- Submit four short stories to four submission calls
- Write story for submission call
You’ll notice that some of these goals (okay, most of them) are the same as January’s. This is because I can’t really move forward onto anything else until I sort out the first set of goals. I am hoping I will do better this time, fingers crossed.
I hope you’ve all done better with your writing goals than I have. Don’t feel bad if you haven’t – there’s always next month.
Stay spooky, folks!
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