Wow. I knew that I'd dropped the ball on blogging, but I didn't realize that I'd left it all the way back in 2018. As always, I'm hoping to get back on the blogging track this year. We'll see if that happens - best laid plans and all that.
January 2019 - February 2019: I participated in the Ruby Slipper Sisterhood's Winter Writing Festival for a second year. I tried using beat sheets for the first time, and tried to summarize all the pintresty-internet advise in to one massive spreadsheet.
February 2019 - July 2019: I wrapped up the summer with a massive 143,700 word draft - too massive for YA fiction. I discovered the 88 Cups of Tea podcast, which became my favorite thing to listen to while cooking dinner.
August 2019: I went deep in to articles about plot links, and spent a lot of time moving my outline from excel spreadsheets, to paper clippings taped to the wall, to scapple outlines. I sent my last draft to my very first non-friend beta reader.
September 2019: I joined the 88 cups of tea group on facebook and made a friend. I revised the same YA fantasy draft in a single month, incorporating feedback from my official beta reader, my new friend from 88 cups of tea, as well as first chapter feedback from my college roommate. By the end of September I actually really liked my draft. I managed to pull it back to 128,000 words (still massive). I entered in to Pitch Wars for the first time.
October 2019: I rested, then began plotting out something new. I found Dhonielle Clayton and Zoraida Cordova's Deadline City podcast. I binge-listened to the whole season at the gym, and began to feel inspired to write again after burning myself out.
November 2019: I did not get in to Pitch Wars, but my 88 cups friend did! What stung the most about not being chosen wasn't so much the announcements in November, but that silence during the whole month of October. I didn't get a single request, which did hurt. I participated in Nano (which I've never managed to do before!) and ended with a completed 25,000 word story that I was really excited about. During Nano, I joined a Discord server for character-driven fantasy and sci-fi, and made some more writing friends.
December 2019: I participated in Pit Mad, and began querying my Pitch Wars manuscript (the same one that I've been working on the entire year), and re-outlined my Nano project.
Which leads us here: 2020. A new year and a new decade. I promised myself I wasn't going to set any goals, and then the next thing I knew, I had a huge bulleted list of the things that I plan to do. I suppose that's a difference - I'm not setting broad goals, I'm making plans.
January 2019 - February 2019: I participated in the Ruby Slipper Sisterhood's Winter Writing Festival for a second year. I tried using beat sheets for the first time, and tried to summarize all the pintresty-internet advise in to one massive spreadsheet.
February 2019 - July 2019: I wrapped up the summer with a massive 143,700 word draft - too massive for YA fiction. I discovered the 88 Cups of Tea podcast, which became my favorite thing to listen to while cooking dinner.
August 2019: I went deep in to articles about plot links, and spent a lot of time moving my outline from excel spreadsheets, to paper clippings taped to the wall, to scapple outlines. I sent my last draft to my very first non-friend beta reader.
September 2019: I joined the 88 cups of tea group on facebook and made a friend. I revised the same YA fantasy draft in a single month, incorporating feedback from my official beta reader, my new friend from 88 cups of tea, as well as first chapter feedback from my college roommate. By the end of September I actually really liked my draft. I managed to pull it back to 128,000 words (still massive). I entered in to Pitch Wars for the first time.
October 2019: I rested, then began plotting out something new. I found Dhonielle Clayton and Zoraida Cordova's Deadline City podcast. I binge-listened to the whole season at the gym, and began to feel inspired to write again after burning myself out.
November 2019: I did not get in to Pitch Wars, but my 88 cups friend did! What stung the most about not being chosen wasn't so much the announcements in November, but that silence during the whole month of October. I didn't get a single request, which did hurt. I participated in Nano (which I've never managed to do before!) and ended with a completed 25,000 word story that I was really excited about. During Nano, I joined a Discord server for character-driven fantasy and sci-fi, and made some more writing friends.
December 2019: I participated in Pit Mad, and began querying my Pitch Wars manuscript (the same one that I've been working on the entire year), and re-outlined my Nano project.
Which leads us here: 2020. A new year and a new decade. I promised myself I wasn't going to set any goals, and then the next thing I knew, I had a huge bulleted list of the things that I plan to do. I suppose that's a difference - I'm not setting broad goals, I'm making plans.
- 100rejections2020: This idea came from a Discord friend during Nano. Statistically, the chances of getting an agent are... low. The exact statistic is proving difficult to determine from casual googling. One Readers Digest article says 1/80, other sources say 1/1000. Either way, 100 seems to be a good compromise. This year, I'm planning on getting rejected 100 times. Since agents can take months to review queries, I started querying towards this goal last month... and received my first rejection of the year yesterday! Of course it stung for 3 seconds, but I'm only just beginning.
- 20Kin5days: This is a new challenge from Tasha Harrison, this challenge is to write 20,000 words in 1 week, once a quarter. I'm challenging myself to fast-draft a new story every quarter during this week. My goal with this plan is to avoid burnout (which seems counterintuitive with such a high goal!) - after spending most of 2019 and a good chunk of 2018 working on the same project, I want to remind myself periodically that I have more than one idea in me. This will also be a good opportunity to experiment with new styles and categories.
- Winter Writing Festival: While this year's festival begins the same day as this quarter's 20K challenge, I'm still planning to spend January and February finishing my second draft of my Nano project.
- Book reports: This one is less of a solid plan and more of a goal. I'd like to revive my writing blog this year, and post more than once (hello, 2019). One way I'm thinking of doing this is trying to write a monthly book report on whatever I've read during the month. The point of this will be to both make sure I'm active in reading the genre I write in, and to dedicate some brain space to reading through a writer's lense.
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